$3 million settlement in death at Bridgewater.

• Position: News

BOSTON -- The parents of a mental health patient who died at Bridgewater State Hospital five years ago will receive $3 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit alleging that prison guards were responsible for the death, their lawyer said.

The $3 million for the parents of Joshua Messier, 23, of Charlton, will be paid by the state and the insurer for MHM Correctional Services, the Virginia-based company that provides medical and mental health care to inmates and patients at Bridgewater, according to their lawyer, Benjamin Novotny.

Messier, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, died after guards secured him spread-eagled in four-point restraints on a small bed in 2009.

In a scene captured on prison video, two guards pressed down on Messier's back while he was seated on the bed with...