Opinion ID: 3063798
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Plaintiff Wingster’s Response in 2008

Text: On January 2, 2008, Plaintiff Wingster filed a motion for extension of time to respond to Defendants’ summary judgment motion. On January 3, the court 1 The motion also included as attachments the medical records relied upon by Dr. Copeland in his affidavit. 4 granted Wingster’s motion. On January 14, Wingster again filed a motion for extension of time, which the court granted on January 17. On January 31, Wingster, for the third time, filed a motion for extension of time to respond to Defendants’ summary judgment motion. On February 5, the court granted Wingster’s motion. On February 15, 2008, roughly two months after being served with Dr. Copeland’s affidavit, Wingster filed both a response to Defendants’ summary judgment motion and a motion for leave to designate a medical expert witness. Wingster’s response to the summary judgment motion argued that “[t]he close proximity of [Haynes’s] death from a closed head injury and his head being cracked twice by the . . . Defendants’ excessive use of force is an obvious proximate cause of his death which can be inferred by the jury without medical evidence.” Wingster’s response stressed that two inmates, Joseph Archer and Thomas White, had testified that the Defendant Officers beat Haynes in his cell the day or days before his death. Wingster’s response also noted certain Mitchell County Hospital records. Haynes’s “Emergency Physician Record” from Mitchell County Hospital states that Haynes was “found unresponsive by guards” and twice indicates that Haynes “ha[d] hematoma ® side of head.” Haynes’s Discharge Summary from Mitchell County Hospital, filled out by Dr. Barbara Kupka, states, “The patient was 5 transferred from Autry Correctional Institute, status post being found unresponsive, reported a questionable seizure but no witnessed seizure. They said that he had hit his head but there was no significant trauma.” Plaintiff Wingster’s motion for leave to designate a medical expert witness stated that Wingster needed thirty additional days to depose Dr. Copeland and to locate an expert of her own. Wingster claimed that she “had no prior notice that [Dr. Copeland’s] expert testimony would be submitted.” Further, Wingster asserted that she “had no notice that the Defendants’ [sic] would contest with medical testimony the proximate cause of the death of Plaintiff’s deceased son” and for this reason did not designate a medical expert.