Choate v. Lockhart, Civ. No. PB-C-89-174.
| Decision Date | 22 November 1991 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. PB-C-89-174. |
| Citation | 779 F. Supp. 987 |
| Parties | Freddy Wayne CHOATE, Plaintiff, v. A.L. LOCKHART, Director, Arkansas Department of Correction, Dale Keith, Bob McCool and R.H. Smith, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas |
J.W. Green, Jr., Green & Henry, Stuttgart, Ark., for plaintiff.
Winston Bryant, Atty. Gen. by Steff Padilla, Asst. Atty. Gen., Little Rock, Ark., for defendants.
Currently pending before the Court are the proposed findings and recommendations of the Magistrate Judge recommending that plaintiff's case be dismissed.1 Counsel for the plaintiff registered objections to the recommendations. Pursuant to the holding of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Branch v. Martin, 886 F.2d 1043 (8th Cir.1989), this Court must conduct a de novo review of the proposed findings and recommendations.
After carefully reviewing the proposed findings and recommendations, as well as the record in its entirety, this Court is persuaded that the evidence establishes that defendants, A.L. Lockhart, R.H. Smith, Delbert Keith and Billy W. McCool,2 were deliberately indifferent to and demonstrated reckless disregard for plaintiff's safety when he was directed to perform work on a 45 degree angle plywood roof, without toe boards or scaffoldings installed, when plaintiff, among other things possessed a recognizable infirm right leg. Accordingly, this Court rejects the proposed findings and recommendations of the Magistrate Judge and rules in favor of the plaintiff on the question of liability as hereinafter discussed.
Plaintiff, Freddy Wayne Choate, was confined to the Arkansas Department of Correction Department on February 12, 1982, which was approximately the second or third time that plaintiff had been incarcerated at the Department. Plaintiff, among other skills, possesses extensive training and experience in the area of carpentry, and, as such, was assigned to the Department's construction crew sometime during 1983 or 1984. The construction crew makes repairs on buildings and on occasion constructs modest structures on premises of the Department. Plaintiff, when advised of his assignment to the construction crew, consulted with the physician at his unit, the Tucker Unit, and registered a complaint regarding the assignment and disclosed certain health problems he possessed that would render plaintiff unfit for the assignment. Plaintiff was immediately assigned a medical classification that specified that plaintiff should not be required to do any lifting, bending and squatting because of health reasons. Plaintiff was required to have an artificial knee implant on his right leg sometime during 1975. Plaintiff was reassigned "to light maintenance" work and was immediately transferred from the Tucker Unit to the Cummins Unit. However, in 1987, without any advance notice, plaintiff was "told to pack my things that I plaintiff was being transferred to the Pine Bluff Unit for construction assignment."
Sometime during the early part of 1987, plaintiff's construction unit was assigned the task of constructing "from the ground up", a garage on premises occupied by Director Lockhart, as a personal residence, but owned by the State of Arkansas and located at the Pine Bluff Diagnostic Unit of the Department.
On April 24, 1987, after the project had been operative for approximately five weeks, plaintiff and five other inmates were directed to perform "decking" on the roof of the structure which was approximately twelve feet above ground.
The area where the "decking" was to be performed was sloped at approximately a 45 degree angle; plaintiff and his associates, fellow inmates assigned to the crew, were required to make use of "a heavy-duty electrical saw" in cutting plywood in performing the decking and other related tasks and, as such, sawdust accumulated on the decking. On several occasions, plaintiff swept the sawdust off of the decking in an effort to reduce "hazardous and dangerous" circumstances.
Relative to the concerns regarding the hazardous conditions that they were exposed to registered by the inmates to their immediate supervisors, on the very morning of the day that plaintiff fell from the roof resulting in physical injuries, the following testimony was received during the evidentiary hearing:
Inmate Kevin Lamley testified as follows:
Inmate Ronald Bartlett testified as follows:
Plaintiff Choate testified as follows:
On cross-examination, plaintiff testified as follows:
To continue reading
Request your trial
- CSS-Wisconsin Office v. Houston Satellite Systems
-
Choate v. Lockhart
...up and go back to work"; and that defendants failed to erect toe boards or scaffolding as safety precautions. See Choate v. Lockhart, 779 F.Supp. 987, 993-94 (E.D.Ark.1991). On examining the evidence as to each defendant, however, it becomes clear that none of them possessed the requisite m......