By Jamie Satterfield
Knoxville News-Sentinel
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — For 70 days, a Knox County jail inmate’s fractured neck went undiagnosed.
On that point, both sides in a federal civil-rights lawsuit agree. But each side is asking U.S. District Judge Pamela Reeves to toss out the other’s case before the litigation ever makes it to a jury.
Attorneys Arthur Knight, Jonathan Taylor and Robert Kurtz filed suit in U.S. District Court on behalf of former Knox County Detention Facility inmate Donald Nichols against the county and six nurses after it was discovered Nichols’ neck was fractured and vertebrae crushed in a fall from his bunk in August 2010.
It would be November 2010 before an X-ray was finally ordered and his medical condition revealed, court records show.
“There is no explanation why (Nichols) did not receive an X-ray until Nov. 5, 2010, when a referral for a possible X-ray was made 70 days earlier,” the attorneys wrote in a motion seeking summary judgment in the case.
A summary judgment motion is designed to seek dismissal in a case before it reaches trial. To be successful, there must be no dispute of facts for a jury to decide, with the case turning on a fight over the law for a judge to settle.
In Nichols’ case, most of the facts aren’t in dispute.
Nichols, then 56, was booked into the jail in early August 2010 on a charge of violating an order of protection. It wasn’t his first visit, and his attorneys contend medical issues had always prompted his assignment to a bottom bunk.
But on this visit, Nichols was assigned a “top bunk on the top floor” of the jail, the attorneys wrote. On Aug. 27, 2010, a sleeping Nichols rolled off that top bunk.
A “code blue,” or emergency medical call, resulted, and nurses Amy Luxford and Deanna Jones responded, court records state. The pair cleaned and bandaged a gash to Nichols’ head and gave him ibuprofen and a muscle relaxer for pain, the records state.
Jones has said in a deposition she made a referral to Luxford, who since has been fired for unrelated problems with her inmate care, for an X-ray.
The jail has an X-ray machine and the ability to process X-rays on site. But no X-ray was ordered. Nichols was ultimately returned to his cell.
Seventy days passed before his complaint of pain finally led to an X-ray and the discovery of his neck injury, which required surgery and led to $240,000 in medical bills and continuing medical woes, according to his attorneys.
The key dispute between Nichols’ legal team and the defenders of the county and nurses is whether the medical staff was “deliberately indifferent” to Nichols’ condition and whether he suffered harm as a result.
Nichols’ attorneys contend Nichols repeatedly complained of pain and, at one point, was found on the floor of his cell on a mat, unable to pull himself onto his newly-assigned lower bunk.
“The treatment withheld was a simple X-ray,” Kurtz wrote.
But attorney Jerome Melson, who represents the nurses, counters Nichols rarely complained and seemed fine.
“(Nichols) was able to take care of himself and tend to his own personal needs including the ability to move around his cell and the jail pod, tend to his bathroom and hygiene needs and feed himself snacks and treats,” Melson wrote.
Melson also argues Nichols received medical care, albeit not the treatment he sought — a trip to a hospital. He contends that absent any outward signs of physical distress, the nurses had no way of knowing Nichols’ neck had been fractured. He has offered no explanation for the delay in the ordering of an X-ray.
A hearing on the respective motions for summary judgment has not yet been set.