County in process of settling negligence claim in 2019 death of Rania Ishak.

Upon her arrest on Aug. 30, 2019, 42-year-old Rania Ishak was taken to the Monterey County Jail. Instead of booking her there, jail personnel turned her away, recommending a sheriff’s deputy transfer her to Natividad Medical Center for mental health treatment as Ishak showed signs of intoxication and suicidal thoughts.

Ishak never made it to her treatment. Instead, the deputy dropped her off somewhere between the jail and the hospital. Within a few hours, Ishak was hit by a train on the tracks near the Chinatown neighborhood of Salinas, where she often spent time in homeless encampments. She died on impact.

With the clock running out on the statute of limitations, Mary Ishak, Rania’s mother, sued the sheriff’s office in August 2021 for negligence in the death of her daughter. Understanding the upfront expense and length of time required to take the case to court, Ishak took the mediation route and on June 16, agreed to terms with the county for an as-yet undisclosed amount of money, according to her attorney, John Klopfenstein.

Ishak declined the Weekly’s request for an interview, but says, despite the mediation’s outcome, she and her family will never get over the pain caused by the sheriff’s officials’ negligence.

“Neither my daughter or myself received justice and I will always feel the pain the rest of my life,” Ishak says via text. She also pointed to news reports from 2019 that outlined her side of the story. According to those reports, Ishak was unaware that her daughter was arrested and recommended for mental health treatment before she was killed on the train tracks. The coroner’s report ruled the death an accident and failed to include background on her earlier arrest, suicidal state or referral for treatment.

Klopfenstein, a former Monterey County deputy public defender whose private practice now specializes in wrongful death and wrongful termination cases, says he often recommends the route of mediation in cases like Ishak’s because it is shorter and less expensive. Although he did not offer a specific amount or range for the settlement, he says the payout through a mediated settlement often ranges from $1 to $100,000.

In the complaint against the Sheriff’s Department, Ishak was characterized as expecting that county officials would attempt to “downplay the worth of [her daughter]’s life because she was a drug addict whose prospects for a long life were stinted by her drug addict lifestyle.” Klopfenstein says negotiating the worth of a life in a wrongful death settlement often comes down to a “cold calculation.”

“There is no amount of money that can cover this and it was a difficult thing to figure out,” Klopfenstein says. “You have to justify the amount. In a good settlement, no one is happy.”

Janet Holmes, assistant county counsel, declined to comment as the case is not yet resolved – she says no settlement is reached until it is approved by the Board of Supervisors. The Sheriff’s Office referred the Weekly to County Counsel for comment.