On January 23, 2012, Carol McKuhen was arrested and jailed in Effingham County on a probation violation. At 1:30 a.m. on January 30, she was found dead in her isolation cell. An autopsy determined that she died of chronic ethanolism with hypertensive heart disease. Toney McKuhen,1 Carol’s surviving spouse, and Tori and Taylor McKuhen, as co-administrators of Carol’s estate, filed a civil action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against jail personnel Merlin Ward, John Reinhart, William Gibson, and Sheriff Jimmy McDuffie,2 collectively Jail Defendants. The McKuhens also named as defendants TransformHealthRX, Inc. THRX,3 the service that contracted with Effingham County to provide medical care to inmates, and THRX employees Dr. Myra Pope, nurse Wanda Brady, and Rhonda Brown collectively Medical Defendants.4 The McKuhens alleged that the Medical Defendants committed malpractice and that all defendants were deliberately indifferent to Carol’s medical needs, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The trial court granted summary judgment to all of the defendants on all claims, and the McKuhens now appeal, arguing that 1 the trial court improperly excluded their expert affidavit in support of their medical malpractice claims; 2 the Medical Defendants were not entitled to summary judgment on the medical malpractice claims; 3 none of the defendants were entitled to summary judgment on the deliberate-indifference claims; and 4 the trial court erred in denying their motion for spoliation sanctions. Although we find Carol’s death to be a tragic event, and one that should not have occurred while in the care of medical and jail staff under these circumstances, after a thorough review of the record, we conclude that the trial did not abuse its discretion by excluding the expert’s affidavit, and therefore, the trial court properly granted summary judgment to the Medical Defendants on the malpractice claims. We also must affirm the trial court’s grant of summary judgment on the § 1983 claims to all defendants except Dr. Pope. Finally, we reverse the trial court’s denial of spoliation sanctions as to the medical records, and remand the case for the trial court to reconsider the spoliation issue in light of the Supreme Court of Georgia’s opinion in Phillips v. Harmon, 297 Ga. 386, 393-94 II 774 SE2d 596 2015, as well as for further proceedings on the § 1983 claim against Dr. Pope.
On appeal from the grant of a motion for summary judgment, we conduct a de novo review of the law and evidence, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, to determine whether a genuine issue of material fact exists and whether the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
