More than a decade after incarcerated people sued the Monterey County Jail, some will be compensated.

As part of the 13-year-old federal class action lawsuit regarding poor conditions at the Monterey County Jail, anyone incarcerated there from late 2016 through the end of 2025 is eligible for a payout.

In 2013, former and current inmates of the Monterey County Jail sued the County of Monterey, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office and California Forensic Medical Group (CFMG) regarding medical, mental health and dental care at the jail, alongside issues related to safety and disability access. In August 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California approved a settlement agreement that detailed how the jail should intake, screen and care for inmates moving forward, and entered the agreement as a court order.

In September 2023, the court ruled that CFMG, at the time the jail’s health care provider, was in contempt of 43 requirements of the 2015 settlement agreement. As part of that ruling, CFMG – which later became Wellpath through a merger – was ordered to distribute $2.47 million to those who were incarcerated between May 27, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2025, to compensate for its inadequate care.

Each qualified claimant will receive a fixed dollar amount from the settlement fund and will receive more money for each day they were incarcerated during the settlement period. The exact amount each claimant receives will depend on the number of people who file claims. Per court documents, if 20 percent of the settlement class submits claims by the April 20 deadline, the average award would be about $336 per person.

The county’s contract with Wellpath ended on Dec. 31, 2025, after a 40-year run as the Monterey County Jail’s health care provider, and Correctional Healthcare Partners (CHP) took over with a five-year and five-month $139 million contract approved by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors last year.

Sheriff Tina Nieto says the new provider is already proving to be a good choice, and staffing has increased from 57 to 90 full-time equivalents.

“It doesn’t seem as chaotic,” Nieto says, “even though a jail is very chaotic.”

Corrections Operations Bureau Chief Deputy Timothy Lanquist says, “Correctional health care is community health care.

“The standards [CHP] have set for themselves have raised the bar to exceed that community standard. In the past, with Wellpath, we were driving the bus. We were pushing for change. It’s gotten to the point where they [at CHP] are pushing us.”

Lanquist adds that caring for the well-being of the Monterey County Jail’s population, whether it’s their physical or mental health, helps incarcerated people better adjust when they are released, which is part of why they recommended CHP, despite the higher cost.

“We know our incarcerated population and we know what they need, so getting a company like Correctional Health Partners that is more of a boutique correctional health care provider, they really come in and look at the needs of our incarcerated population and tailor a program for that population,” he says. “That’s what really sold us was that partnership.”