04/08/2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Civil rights lawyer Hank Sherrod is pleased to announce that on Thursday afternoon a diverse 12-person federal court jury in Montgomery, Alabama returned a verdict yesterday in favor of his client, Neal Gartman, and against a former Quality Correctional Health Care nurse, Lisa Brady, finding that Brady violated Gartman’s constitutional rights by being deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs while Gartman was in the Autauga County Jail in Prattville, Alabama. QCHC is a correctional medical care company based in Birmingham, Alabama. In May 2016, Brady was the Health Services Administrator who managed medical care at the Autauga County Jail. Gartman was a 50-year-old first-time arrestee on a misdemeanor charge that was later dismissed. (Brady currently works as a correctional nurse for Wexford Health at an Alabama state prison facility.)
The trial was before US District Judge Myron Thompson.
The jury found that Brady was deliberately indifferent to Gartman’s serious medical needs when she saw Gartman for heart problems, including chest pain. Gartman is a heart patient with a pacemaker/defibrillator in his chest. If the pacemaker cannot control rapid beating of Gartman’s heart, the defibrillator shocks the heart to get it back in rhythm. Even though the defibrillator in Gartman’s chest fired while Gartman was in the medical office with Brady, causing Gartman to fall to the floor, Brady failed to take vital signs or call the doctor or paramedics. Brady cleared Gartman and sent him to wait in a cell until he would be able to bond out over 2 hours later. There was evidence that Brady’s failure to act was influenced by the contract between QCHC and the City of Prattville, who housed inmates at the county jail. Prattville was responsible for the cost of any medical care for city inmates.
During the nearly 2 hours before Gartman was released, Gartman’s heart rate exceeded 220 beats per minute 35 times, going as high as 272 bpm, and his defibrillator shocked him 27 times, causing Gartman to defecate on himself. Ultimately, jail personnel called the city magistrate and got Gartman released from jail early so he could seek medical care on his own. While on a gurney with paramedics in his jail cell, Gartman was required to sign release paperwork.
When Gartman got to the hospital, it was discovered that the stent in Gartman’s left anterior descending artery, also called the widowmaker artery, had collapsed.
Brady claimed that Gartman did not complain about any heart problems. In discovery, the jail provided a medical file for Gartman that Brady prepared sometime after Gartman left the jail in a stretcher. It contained no reference to heart problems or the defibrillator incident and blamed Gartman for her failure to get vital signs.
The jury’s verdict was implicitly a finding that the medical file was created by Brady to help her defend a future lawsuit.
The jury heard evidence that when Gartman’s defibrillator started repeatedly firing in 2015 in a Wal-Mart, strangers came to Gartman’s aid, and Gartman was promptly seen by paramedics. In closing argument, Sherrod argued that in this country an inmate seeing a jail nurse should be treated as well as he was treated by strangers at a Wal-Mart.
“I asked the jurors to right this wrong and send a message, and they did,” Sherrod said. “No one that gets arrested should fear they will leave the jail in a body bag. Medical care for serious medical conditions, even in a jail, should not depend upon who is paying the bill.”
More details regarding the factual background can be found in Judge Thompson’s summary judgment opinion. https://casetext.com/case/gartman-v-cheatham-4
Because the defibrillator shocks were not a medical cause of any damage to Gartman’s heart, Gartman’s damages were limited. The jury could only compensate Gartman for pain and suffering related to the roughly 2-hour period before Gartman was taken from the jail by paramedics.
The jury awarded $100,000 in compensatory damages.
The jury also awarded $35,000 in punitive damages. The jury found that Brady acted with callous disregard for Gartman’s constitutional rights.
Attorney’s fees will be awarded at a later date.
The jury also found that two corrections officers were not liable, presumably because they relied on Brady.
A copy of the defibrillator report and the 4:57pm recording where the city magistrate was called are attached. The recording references that Gartman is “falling all over the dang ole floor.”
