Members of a Pennsylvania family say they lost a loved one due to the carelessness of prison employees.

The man's family claims that shortly after he entered the Fayette County Prison, he suffered agonizing pain. In a wrongful death claim they filed against prison employees, his family had claimed his cries were help were ignored. He died the next day.

Now, the family will collect a $500,000 settlement. In the lawsuit, the man's widow contended that prison employees failed to take action when the man complained of abdominal pain, and that caused his unnecessary death.

The man, who was apparently imprisoned for violating a restraining order, became ill soon after entering the prison on Feb. 22, 2007. He had gastric bypass surgery several years earlier, and a complication was a perforation in his intestine. He then apparently contracted peritonitis, which is an infection of the membrane surrounding the stomach wall.

The inmate's family says he spent 30 hours suffering from excruciating and unnecessary pain while in his prison cell. He died on Feb. 23, 2007, the day after entering prison.

The family sued the warden, as well as four guards and a lieutenant, in the U.S. District Court. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the settlement was reached out of court after several days of testimony were taken in court in Pittsburgh in November.

The commissioner, who took office after the man's death, acknowledges there may have been "missed signals" that led to the man's death. None of the defendants in the case, however, admitted any wrongdoing. The prison's medical provider was not part of the lawsuit.

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Suit over Fayette inmate's death settled for $500,000," Richard Robbins, Dec. 24, 2011