Response to motion for summary judgment - Kentucky.com

or any form of healing of the fractured ribs. (Id., p. 49). Since there is evidence, from numerous lay
witnesses and from Nurse Hatton, that Gerald did not have rib fractures before he was admitted to
the Detention Center, there is good cause for a jury to doubt Dr. Nichols’ assumption that Gerald’s
rib fractures predated his admission to the Detention Center.
The Defendants represented in their Motion that “the expert testimony [from Dr. Nichols]
will be that the trauma which was the cause of the bruising noted at the time of Cornett’s admission
to the University of Kentucky Medical Center occurred prior to his detention.” (Memorandum in
Support of Motion for Summary Judgment at 23, 28-29). First and foremost, there is a factual
dispute here because Dr. Davis testified that he believed most of Gerald’s bruises looked
contemporaneous with or around the time of his fall. Second, Dr. Nichols did not reach his opinion
regarding the date of the bruises from looking at pictures. He reached his opinion solely based on
“the charting that was present in the emergency department and in the neurosurgery
resident’s note.” (Id., p. 44). Keeping in mind Dr. Davis’ caution that expert testimony dating
bruises to a specific time is, for all intents and purposes, a voodoo science, it is simply preposterous
to accept that Dr. Nichols can accurately date a bruise based solely on written charts without pictures.
Nichols testified that caucasians like Gerald take at least four hours to develop the beginning of a
visible bruise, but that alcoholics bruise faster than most people. (Id., p. 39). Bob Arnold took
pictures of Gerald’s bruises on August 18, 2005, more than three days after Gerald’s stay at the
Detention Center. (B. Arnold Depo., p. 17). When Dr. Nichols reviewed these pictures, he
admitted that he could not say that the bruises depicted in those photographs were caused by injuries
that predated his incarceration. (Nichols Depo., p. 45). Therefore, Dr. Nichols’ testimony that, in
medical probability, all such injuries that caused Gerald’s bruising predated his admission to the jail,
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