Opinion ID: 3063798
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: District Court’s September 30, 2008, Order

Text: On September 30, 2008, the district court denied Wingster’s motion for leave to designate a medical expert and granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The district court first discussed the medical-expert issue. The district court found that Wingster “was aware of Dr. Copeland from the beginning of the case,” as Dr. Copeland treated Haynes at Phoebe Putney Hospital, completed Haynes’s death certificate,2 and was explicitly identified by Wingster as a witness to the case in her response to Defendant Head’s interrogatories.3 In her 2 Haynes’s death certificate listed “Left Middle Cerebral Artery CVA” as his immediate cause of death. 3 The district court noted that, in response to Defendant Head’s interrogatories, Wingster produced copies of Haynes’s death certificate and treatment records from Phoebe Putney 6 initial disclosures, Wingster had indicated that possible witnesses included “medical personnel at . . . Phoebe Putnam [sic].” Later, in response to Defendant Head’s interrogatories, Wingster herself identified the medical personnel at Phoebe Putney Hospital as possible expert witnesses. After detailing the case’s procedural history, the district court determined that “[a] reasonable reading of the treatment records and the death certificate would have shown a reasonable person that causation could be an issue” and that Wingster “ha[d] not been diligent in discovering this or any aspect of the case.” The court noted that Defendants filed Dr. Copeland’s affidavit on December 14, 2007. Wingster obtained three extensions of time and eventually filed her response to the summary judgment motion on February 15, 2008. The district court pointed out that, as of the date of its September 30, 2008, order, Wingster’s motion had been pending for over six months, but Wingster had shown no signs of progress in identifying an expert, as follows: In Plaintiff’s motion for leave to designate an expert, Plaintiff does not state that she has even attempted to find an expert even though she has had a copy of Dr. Copeland’s affidavit since at least December 14, 2007, much less what facts the expert would testify to. Plaintiff has not filed any document or notice since the filing of the motion for leave to designate an expert that she has made any progress in her search. Plaintiff’s motion has been pending for at least 6 months without any update or statements on the progress of her efforts. There has been no statement as to why Plaintiff failed to locate an expert in the first place or why she has not at least identified Hospital, all of which listed Dr. Copeland’s name. 7 an expert since the date of filing of the affidavit. (Internal citations omitted.) As to Defendants’ summary judgment motion, the district court observed that inmates Archer and White had testified that Defendants beat Haynes shortly before his death. Although Archer testified that he watched the alleged beating in Haynes’s cell, Defendants produced photographic evidence that Archer could not see inside Haynes’s cell from his own cell. And White testified only that, on the day of Haynes’s alleged beating, he heard screams and assumed they were coming from Haynes’s cell. The district court stated that White’s testimony “[was] not properly before the Court” because White had not been timely identified as a witness and that “[e]ven so, White’s testimony is not that helpful to Plaintiff.”4 The court also concluded that, even if Archer’s and White’s testimony created fact issues as to whether Defendants beat Haynes, Wingster still had not shown an issue of material fact as to other elements of her excessive force claim, including causation. The court found that “[a]ll of the admissible evidence, which was presented by Defendants, shows that the aneurysm and stroke are the result of natural causes” and that Wingster had not shown an issue of material fact as to causation. The district court determined that Wingster “produced no admissible 4 On Defendants’ objection to its admissibility, the district court noted that White’s identity was not revealed until Wingster filed her response to Defendants’ motion for summary judgment approximately four months after the close of discovery. In this appeal, Wingster has not challenged the district court’s ruling regarding White’s testimony. 8 evidence, other than conjecture and speculation, that the alleged assault caused [Haynes’s] death.” The district court noted, “In fact, the overwhelming evidence in the record, [sic] shows that Haynes [sic] death was not caused by Defendants.” Wingster timely appealed.