White v. Woods

Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendants-prison nurse and prison doctor’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-prisoner’s section 1983 action, alleging that defendants were deliberately indifferent to his knee condition by persisting in conservative treatment of his knee and failing to timely perform complete examination of his knee. Plaintiff’s expert provided un-rebutted opinion that there was critical six-week period to treat plaintiff’s ACL injury to avoid further damage, and although plaintiff was seen by medical personnel at least 15 times for his knee condition and was prescribed different medications and received several x-rays and physical therapy, as well as made no recorded complaints for over one year, jury could still find that defendants’ treatment of plaintiffs’ knee condition was ineffective and delayed proper treatment of his knee condition.. In this regard, record showed that: (1) defendant-nurse failed to perform complete examination of plaintiff’s knee over seven-week period and did not refer plaintiff for MRI, which could have revealed existence of ACL tear; and (2) defendant-doctor also did not complete examination of plaintiff’s knee and persisted in giving plaintiff conservative treatment.