Inmate beats odds, gets trial over eye injury

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Johnny Davis thought the cataract surgery he had in 2005 would solve problems with his left eye. Instead, complications after the procedure only made life worse for the 57-year-old serving life in federal prison.

Three years later, with the pain and problems lingering, Davis, acting without an attorney, sued the U.S. Bureau of Prisons over his treatment while housed at United States Penitentiary-Big Sandy in Inez. Davis kept the suit alive and beat the odds to get a chance to argue his case before a jury on May 7 in Lexington. U.S. District Judge Amul R. Thapar granted him the trial date in a ruling Thursday.

The case is unusual, both because Davis pursued it for the first three years without the assistance of an attorney and because he'll get a trial, unless a settlement is reached.

"These cases rarely make it to juries," said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney with the Legal Aide Justice Center in Falls Church, Va., who is not involved in the case. "There are so many ways ... jails get them thrown out. It's very rare it'll actually go to a jury."

Davis' current attorney, MacKenzie Mayes Walter, who joined the lawsuit in September, said she looks forward to establishing that prison officials were responsible for Davis' "serious injuries."

Davis, convicted of federal drug charges in South Carolina, is currently being held at a federal prison in Williamsburg, S.C., and could not be reached for comment. The U.S. Justice Department, which represents the Bureau of Prisons, routinely declines to comment on pending litigation.

In court filings, the Bureau of Prisons denied any wrongdoing or negligence in the case and said the prison medical staff followed the recommendations of the doctors in handling Davis.

"Plaintiff's complaints appeared to be typical post-surgical complaints for anyone experiencing cataract surgery," Assistant U.S. Attorney Dell Littrell wrote in a court filing.

The basic facts of the saga of Davis' left eye are undisputed by both sides of the lawsuit, but the interpretation of whether Davis received adequate care remains a point of conflict in the case.

"Very bad things happen to people behind bars," Sandoval-Moshenberg said. "It's almost random to whom it happens."

Davis's case started in November 2004, when the inmate complained of having trouble while reading. A prison optometrist, Dr. Tod Diffenbaugh, diagnosed a cataract in Davis' left eye and recommended surgery. Another doctor, Russell Fry in Huntington, W.Va., confirmed the diagnosis and performed the surgery on June 27, 2005.

Davis returned to Big Sandy, which at the time housed multiple violent felons, three days later with instructions to not put pressure on the eye and take Tylenol for the pain. The doctors also put Davis on a steroid, pred forte, and gave him instructions to contact the prison medical staff if there were problems.

"Those instructions may be easy for most patients to follow in the comfort of their homes, but they proved more difficult for a Big Sandy prisoner," Thapar wrote.

A physician's assistant, Samiran Bhadra examined Davis on July 1, 2005 and found "mild swelling" in his left eye, but didn't refer the inmate to any doctor. In 2003 and 2004, prison officials had disciplined Bhadra for failing to follow policy in handling an inmate's medical care and a 20 day suspension for endangering the welfare of an inmate.

When asked during a deposition if Davis was honest, Bhadra told Davis' lawyers that "99.9 percent" of inmates are liars and that "he had not seen a good guy yet" at Big Sandy.

Davis went back to the doctor on July 13, 2005, when Diffenbaugh diagnosed a problem and noted that the inmate needed to see a specialist "ASAP."

The complications caused Davis to develop iritis, an inflammation of the iris in the eye, which can lead to glaucoma. That complication is what ultimately afflicted Davis as the Bureau of Prisons transferred him first to a federal prison in Coleman, Fla., just north of Tampa, then on to his current home in a federal prison in South Carolina.

In 2008, after the federal government rejected Davis' medical claim for $500,000, he filed suit in Pikeville over the way his medical case was handled. Through persistence, he hung on until three attorneys from Lexington took up his case in September 2011.

While getting a case against the federal government to trial is tough, winning it is even harder because there are multiple defenses to negligence allegations available to the government, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

"Stupidity is a defense in these actions," Sandoval-Moshenberg said. "The person can say 'I didn't know it was a big deal'."