The family of Stanley Wilson Jr. can proceed to trial with its case against Los Angeles County in which they allege the 40-year-old ex-NFL player died while in custody in 2023 due to medical negligence, a judge has ruled.
The late cornerback was arrested for trespassing in November 2022 and detained at the Twin Towers Jail. He had been deemed incompetent to stand trial and had a history of mental illness, his family’s attorney said at the time.
On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Fruin denied the county’s motion to dismiss the family’s case and trial is tentatively scheduled for April 5, 2027.
In their dismissal motion, county attorneys stated that the plaintiffs’ case had evolved from one originally alleging excessive force in the government claim to a fourth amended complaint filed in October 2025 contending that Wilson died after getting inadequate medical care after suffering a pulmonary embolism.
“While a complaint may elaborate upon facts disclosed in a government claim, it may not fundamentally shift allegations and premise liability on a wholly different set of operative facts, involving different conduct, different actors, different duties, and a different mechanism of injury,” the county attorneys contend. “That is precisely what occurred here.”
But the family attorneys explained in their court papers that the switch in theories was reasonable.
“From the outset, Stanley Wilson Jr.’s parents lacked critical information regarding the facts and circumstances of Stanley’s death, including video footage that was not produced until 2025,” Wilson’s family attorneys state. “As such, they timely filed a government claim against LASD on March 14, 2023, based on the limited information they had when they presented the claim, including public reporting at the time.”
The hypotheses of liability against the county became more focused through the course of litigation and has always amounted to the county’s failure to handle and treat Wilson as an inmate experiencing mental health illness in violation of his rights, according to the Wilson family lawyers’ pleadings.
From the original complaint through the third amended complaint, the Wilson family has consistently said that despite months-long efforts, they had been unable to obtain video footage and information concerning the facts and circumstances of Wilson’s death, the Wilson family lawyers further wrote.
The family finally obtained the requested video after the entering of an order in July 2025, the Wilson attorneys further stated in their court papers.
The Stanford University graduate and former Detroit Lions player died on Feb. 1, 2023. The suit filed in September of that year names as defendants the county, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Department of State Hospitals.
The family further maintains that the county negligently failed to transfer Wilson to Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk by a court-ordered deadline and that the alleged medical and custodial failures contributed to the pulmonary embolism that ultimately caused his death.
After playing for Stanford, Wilson was drafted in the third round of the 2005 NFL draft by the Detroit Lions. He played cornerback for three seasons and had 86 tackles during his NFL career before experiencing a knee injury in 2007 and an Achilles injury during the 2008 preseason.