A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit filed by the sons of a man beaten to death at the Clayton County Jail by another inmate in August 2012 in an attack that, according to contemporaneous media coverage, began with an argument over a piece of candy.

In dismissing the case on Friday, Chief Judge Thomas Thrash Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia wrote that Clayton County, its sheriff and jail staff and the former medical contractor for the jail, CorrectHealth LLC, were all shielded from liability in the death of Kenneth Grochowski.