Christine Turner v. Garry Stewart, M.D., No. 22-1469 (8th Cir. 2023)
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L.W.’s appendix ruptured during her incarceration, and she subsequently died from sepsis. Plaintiff, as special administrator of L.W.’s estate, filed suit against the county in which L.W. was incarcerated, as well as against the individuals involved in her incarceration and medical care, alleging civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 and tort claims under state law. The medical malpractice claim against the jail physician, Defendant, went to trial. Defendant moved for judgment as a matter of law at the close of Plaintiff’s evidence. The district court granted the motion. The jury returned a verdict for Plaintiff and awarded $1.3 million in damages. The district court granted Defendant a credit against the verdict for the value of the settlement, amending the judgment to $800,000. Defendant appealed the denial of judgment as a matter of law on the medical malpractice claim. Plaintiff appealed the grant of judgment as a matter of law on the punitive damages claim, as well as the grant of credit against the verdict.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that it does not believe that the court’s decision to preclude the use of legal terms like “reckless” would have had any bearing on its decision to grant judgment as a matter of law on punitive damages. The court explained that it does not matter that separate wrongdoings caused L.W.’s injuries. UCATA does not focus on the cause of the injury or the policy reason for imposing liability. It focuses on the injury, which Plaintiff has alleged is the same for the Section 1983 claims as it is for the medical malpractice claim
Court Description: [Per Curiam - Before Colloton, Wollman, and Gruender, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. Turner alleged her decedent Warner, a jail detainee, was denied proper medical care while incarcerated at the county jail and died as a result. A jury awarded her $1.3 million in damages against Stewart, the jail physician, on her claim for medical malpractice, and Stewart appeals, arguing that Turner's expert witness had not established the applicable standard of care in the locality at issue, as required by Ark. Code Ann. Sec. 16-114-206(a)(1). Stewart moved for directed verdict at the close of the evidence but did not renew his motion under Rule 50(b) after entry of judgment. Held: the issue was not preserved for appeal; Stewart's challenge was, in effect, a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the standard-of-care element of the medical malpractice claim and, in order to preserve the issue for appeal, he was required to renew his motion under Rule 50(b) after the judgment was entered. The district court did not err in granting judgment as a matter of law for Stewart on Turner's claim for punitive damages as the evidence does not compel a conclusion with reasonable certainty that Stewart acted with malice or reckless disregard of the consequences of his conduct such that malice could be inferred; the district court did not err in giving Stewart a credit for the amount of the settlement the County and other defendants reached with Turner as they were all joint tortfeasors.
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