Motion adds defendants in jail suit

By Mark Boxley
of The Daily Times Staff

Attorneys for a Morristown man suing Blount County for $1.5 million filed a motion for an amended complaint Wednesday naming two former and two current Blount County Jail employees as defendants.
The amended complaint would also increase the damages sought by the lawsuit to $2 million.
Jamey Southerland, 34, Morristown, filed suit earlier this year in U.S. District Court in Knoxville alleging he was the subject of an unprovoked assault while in custody in the “pat-down” room of the Blount County Jail. The assault, he claims, resulted in a severely broken arm that required a full-arm cast for three months and the installation of a plate and seven screws.
Southerland also alleges he was not given medical treatment for his injuries after bringing them to the attention of jail staff.
According to the suit, Southerland was seeking $500,000 in compensatory damages and $1 million in punitive damages. That changed Wednesday with the motion filed by his Knoxville attorneys Brent A. Morris and Michael K. Atkins which includes an amended complaint increasing the amount being sought to $1 million each for compensatory and punitive damages.
At the time of the original filing, Southerland named Blount County, the Blount County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff James Berrong and unnamed jailers and supervisors as defendants.
The amended complaint, if accepted by the court, would add former Blount County Jail employees James Latham and Gary Sparks as defendants. Capt. Dan Neubert — who according to a use of force report filed with the sheriff’s office after the alleged incident, was division captain at the time — and Sgt. Keith Gregory, who signed the use of force report as shift supervisor, are also named in the amended complaint.
The motion is asking the presiding judge to allow the amended complaint to be filed formally. The reason for filing the amended complaint, according to court documents, is that at the time of the original complaint certain defendants had not been identified. Also, court documents state that counsel for the defendants requested the amended complaint not be filed until mediation between the parties had been completed. That mediation came to an unsuccessful conclusion on Sept. 27.
Based largely on information gathered from a Maryville Police officer’s in-car video and audio recording that captured much of the alleged incident, Southerland’s amended complaint is accusing Latham and Sparks specifically of causing his injuries. The jail’s pat-down room does not have video surveillance, and because of that Southerland’s lawsuit alleges the men tried to “re-create the assault of Jamey Southerland thinking there would be no evidence to the contrary,” the amended complaint says.
“The defendants acted in concert in furtherance of a common design to injure Jamey Southerland and to fraudulently disguise the facts surrounding his injury by unlawfully falsifying incident reports which failed in every sense to convey the true facts surrounding this incident,” the amended complaint alleges.
According to incident reports filed by Latham and Sparks, as well as the use of force report, the jailers accused Southerland of acting in an “aggressive manner,” that he was being “very uncooperative” and that at one point he “acted as though he was about to strike officer Sparks.” The video obtained from the Maryville Police officer’s in-car video camera and the audio recording seem to dispute those allegations. It appears in the video that Southerland was acting in a calm, cooperative manner and was not acting aggressively towards any of the law enforcement personnel present.
Latham and Sparks are no longer employed by the sheriff’s office. According information from the county, their departure had nothing to do with the incident involving Southerland.
Southerland’s amended complaint claims Blount County, the Blount County Sheriff’s Office and Berrong are liable in the case because “official policies and customs of Blount County were unconstitutional, or ... the policies and customs of Blount County were unconstitutionally implemented.”
No camera in room
The complaint also alleges, “Blount County’s policies and customs in place at the time of the accident created the environment in which inmate abuse would be tolerated, and such policies and customs served to create the culture in which the defendant jailers worked.”
The lack of video surveillance in the pat-down room of the jail is proof of that, the amended complaint argues.
“This conspiracy is further demonstrated by Blount County officials’ decision to not place video surveillance in the ‘pat-down room’ for the implicit purpose of not recording similar incidents,” it states.
According to Blount County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Marian O’Briant, though, the reason a camera is absent in the pat-down room stems from the late 1990s when the jail was built. Because of the construction budget for the jail project, 60 cameras had to be cut from the facility, she said.
“That was one of them that was cut,” she said.
Citing the ongoing lawsuit, the officials from the county have declined to comment on Southerland’s allegations.
A response to Southerland’s recent filing had not been filed by the county or any of the other defendants late Wednesday. A hearing date has not been set for the judge in the case to decide if the amended complaint will be allowed in the case.
Wednesday’s filing comes a day after attorney’s for the county and Berrong filed a motion seeking sanctions against Southerland’s attorneys for commenting on the case in the media. The county’s motion also asked for a protective order seeking to bar the man’s attorneys from speaking about the case to the media in the future. A decision by the judge on the county’s motion has not been made.