Jury: Doctor not at fault

A medical malpractice lawsuit that accused a doctor of missing signs of prostate cancer in a former inmate of the Steele County Detention Center ended with an acquittal.
Breyana Larkins, the daughter of Elbert Larkins, filed the suit in 2019. It originally named 10 defendants, including Steele County and Sheriff Lon Thiele, but charges against nine of them were dismissed with prejudice – meaning their cases can never be brought back to court.
That left Dr. William Scheidt, a general surgeon who practiced in the Mankato and New Prague area before treating inmates, accused of “negligence in care and treatment” of Larkins while he was housed in Steele County.
Scheidt’s attorney argued that he followed accepted standards of medical practice in his care and treatment of Larkins and that he did not cause the death.
According to court documents, Larkins complained of blood in his urine several times from February of 2015 until February of 2017, when he was referred to a urologist because he was unable to urinate. A month later, he was diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer.
Larkins died in May of 2018, at age 54.
The jury got the case after five days of testimony; they deliberated for less than four hours before returning a verdict of not guilty, and awarded no money to Breyana Larkins.
She was seeking damages in excess of $100,000.