Filings tell judge suit by amputee baseless

Attorneys for Pulaski County and a contracted medical provider have filed their first responses to a civil-rights lawsuit alleging that a stint in the county jail cost a man his leg.

In September, Reginald Davis sued the county, Turn Key Health Clinics and some of the parties’ employees in U.S. District Court, contending that he received a dose of the wrong kind of insulin while incarcerated in 2017.

Lightheaded, Davis fell and broke his ankle, leading to an infection that required the amputation of his right leg, his lawyer wrote. Attorney Austin Porter argued in a complaint that Davis’ treatment violated his civil rights and constitutes medical malpractice.

“The defendants were deliberately indifferent towards the serious medical needs of Mr. Davis, which resulted in his continued suffering,” he wrote.

Last week, attorneys representing the county, its employees and Sheriff Eric Higgins responded to the suit for the first time, denying many of its allegations.

Davis’ medical needs were “appropriately addressed,” and no rights violation — either constitutional or statutory — occurred, they wrote.

Davis was sentenced to concurrent 30-day terms in jail in 2017 after pleading guilty to criminal trespassing and obstructing government operations, both misdemeanors, records show. According to reports, the charges stemmed from an arrest after he’d been found sleeping in a Little Rock grocery store.

While in the Pulaski County jail, Davis received a dose

of insulin that was short-acting “regular or neutral” insulin, rather than intermediate-acting “NPH or isophane” insulin, Porter wrote in court documents.

He then “passed out” and hurt his leg, the lawsuit says. A jail deputy named in the suit “immediately recognized that something was wrong with Mr. Davis’ ankle, noting that it was severely swollen, and bent in an awkward manner.”

Davis was diagnosed with a broken fibula at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences after a week, court filings say. He was transferred to the Arkansas Department of Correction to serve time for a parole violation and underwent surgery. He contracted an infection during his recovery and had his right leg amputated.

Porter wrote that that episode and delays in treatment amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and interfered with Davis’ right to due process, and that his medical care in the jail was “grossly negligent.”

The lawsuit asks for a jury trial and requests that Davis be awarded damages, attorneys’ fees and court costs. It names the county, Higgins and three jail employees as respondents, as well as Oklahoma-based Turn Key Health Clinics and one of its staff members.

Lawyers for Turn Key Health Clinics also submitted first responses to the lawsuit this month. Filings on Dec. 20 include a request that a judge toss out Davis’ complaint against the health-care provider, arguing that no constitutional claims are alleged against it.

“Alleged medical malpractice simply does not rise to the level of constitutional violation as a matter of law, and that is the most he pleads as to a purported medication error,” attorneys Mark Wankum and Amelia Botteicher of the Anderson, Murphy and Hopkins law firm wrote in a motion to dismiss.

Attorneys for the county additionally argued in their pleading that punitive-damage claims, which Davis is requesting, are themselves violations of due process and equal-protection guarantees, in part because no definitive standard exists for setting those awards.

Attorneys for Davis and Pulaski County did not immediately return inquiries about the lawsuit Friday, and Wankum said he does not comment on current litigation.

The case has been assigned to Judge Lee Rudofsky, and no trial date has been set.