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Young v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County2/6/2003
I. An Unfortunate Accident and a Confusing Complaint
In April of 1996, Sylvester Young was incarcerated in the H.G. Hill annex of the Davidson County Jail. He alleges that as he was going to breakfast, there was a pool of water on the floor of the mess hall that he failed to notice, and that there were no warning signs to alert him to the presence of the water. He slipped in the water and fell, injuring his hamstring muscle and back. Despite medical treatment, his condition did not improve.
On March 27, 1997, Mr. Young filed a hand-written pro se complaint in the Chancery Court of Davidson County, naming the State of Tennessee, the Metro Sheriff's Department, and jail employee Joyce Jordan as defendants. It is unclear from any of his filings exactly what his theory of recovery was. In any case, he asked for $3 million for pain and suffering under Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983, $3 million for mental anguish, and $5 million for "loss and damages." A later amended complaint mentioned negligence, and elaborated slightly on his claims.
On June 18, 1997, Metro Government filed an answer, and asked that the complaint be dismissed for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted. See Tenn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(6). Metro also denied any negligence, or any inference that any of its agents had prior notice of water on the floor. The Chancery Court dismissed the U.S.C. § 1983 constitutional claim for failure to state a claim. For jurisdictional reasons, it had to transfer the remaining tort claim to the Circuit Court. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-20-307.
II. Proceedings in the Circuit Court
The Circuit Court granted summary judgment to defendant Joyce Jordan on October 4, 1999. The court noted that as a government employee who was not a health care practitioner, Ms. Jordan was immune from suit under Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-30-310.
On September 14, 2000, the Circuit Court conducted a hearing on the negligence claim. Mr. Young called his sister and two of his brothers as witnesses. Their testimony was simply that Mr. Young had told them about the accident, that they gave him money for medication while he was in jail, and that they sometimes drove him to the doctor after he was released.
Mr. Young then took the stand himself. He was very forthcoming about his own history, and admitted to several accidents he suffered both before and after his incarceration. In 1991, he fell through a mirror, severely cutting his jaw. He also received worker's compensation in 1991 for an on-the-job back injury . Sometime later, he fell down a flight of stairs. When he went to jail, he was suffering from four broken ribs and "a fractured tailbone." After his release, he was in two automobile accidents.
The plaintiff asked the court to admit over 100 pages of medical records into evidence. The records contained information about treatment for a multiplicity of conditions from 1991 on, most of which appear to have little relevance to Mr. Young's claims. However, a 1997 MRI report shows a disc herniation at the L5-S1 level of the spine, with compression of a sciatic nerve root.
At the conclusion of the plaintiff's proof, Metro offered a motion for directed verdict. The court took the motion under advisement, and the defendant put on its proof by calling two Sheriff's Department employees as witnesses. The two witnesses had worked in the H.G. Hill Annex at the time Mr. Young was incarcerated there. They both gave evidence to indicate that Mr. Young's alleged accident either did not happen, or did not happen in the way he testified. The trial court then granted Metro Government's Motion for Directed Verdict. This appeal followed.
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