Family of woman wrongly declared dead receives $3.3M settlement
The city of Southfield, a suburb of Detroit, has agreed to pay the family of Timesha Beauchamp $3.25 million to resolve a lawsuit stemming from a bizarre 2020 incident in which the 20-year-old woman was declared dead by paramedics only to be recognized as alive at a funeral parlor hours later.
Beauchamp, who lived with cerebral palsy, suffered a seizure in August 2020 that required emergency medical attention. According to facts laid out in the lawsuit, when EMTs employed by Southfield arrived at her home, Beauchamp was unconscious.
After checking for a pulse, emergency responders concluded the young woman had passed away. As a result, they never rushed her to a hospital. Instead she was sent to a funeral home in a zipped body bag.
When she arrived, staff was shocked to find that the young woman’s eyes were open and she was breathing.
Her family would file a lawsuit two months later, shortly before Beauchamp passed away. They alleged that the mistake contributed to the woman’s death, as a trip to the funeral home delayed necessary patient care that could have been delivered in an emergency room.
The case, which earned national attention, stalled for more than five years. It was finally settled out of court in December 2025.
A renewed plea
According to ClickOnDetroit, in October 2025—five years after filing the lawsuit—Beauchamp’s mother, Erica Lattimore, held a press conference accusing Southfield of delaying the case from going to trial.
Her attorney, Steven Hurbis, said the city was using procedural tactics to keep the lawsuit from moving forward, while refusing to agree to a settlement. As a result, he was forced to make a public appeal.
Two months later, the settlement was finalized. In the end, the city opted not to test its luck with a jury and agreed to the payout as a final resolution.
“We recognize that no resolution can undo the profound tragedy that occurred on August 23, 2020, or ease the pain experienced by Ms. Beauchamp’s family,” Southfield said in a statement to the outlet, adding that “extraordinarily difficult circumstances that arose in the complex world of a global pandemic.”
Hurbis said he believes renewed public interest in the case pushed the city to finally settle and bring closure to his client.
“I really, truly think that Erica’s impassioned plea to the community, explaining what she had been through, what the family had been through, why she was fighting this fight, and what Timesha had meant to their family, really is something that started pushing things forward,” Hurbis told ClickOnDetroit.
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Chad is an award-winning writer and editor with over 15 years of experience working in media. He has a decade-long professional background in healthcare, working as a writer and in public relations.