Attorneys Sheehan & Simpler Obtain Defense Verdict in Federal Court in Montgomery

Attorneys Winston Sheehan and Miland Simpler successfully defended a claim in the Middle District of Alabama against two Autauga County correctional officers alleging that the officers were deliberately indifferent to an inmate’s serious medical need, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The plaintiff claimed that his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) in his chest repeatedly shocked him during a 24-hour hold at the jail, that he had a known cardiac condition, and exhibited other physical signs of a need for medical treatment. The plaintiff claimed the officers and the jail’s medical staff were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs while he was at the jail.

Sheehan and Simpler successfully rebutted the plaintiff’s claims of certain physical manifestations of medical need, that the correctional officers were authorized to rely on the professional opinion of the jail’s medical staff, and that the officers did not deliberately or recklessly disregard any medical need of the plaintiff, but attended to him in a manner consistent with the opinions of jail medical personnel. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the two correctional officers.