BENTON – State prisoner Jeffrey Eastman sued his keepers and doctors, earned a settlement conference and a lawyer, and died a week too soon.
Attorney Sean Dolan of St. Louis filed a suggestion of death as Eastman’s counsel on April 13, stating he died that day or the day before.
Dolan had entered his appearance in U.S. district court on March 30, to represent Eastman at the settlement conference on April 20.
He asked Magistrate Judge Reona Daly to convert the April 20 proceedings to a status conference, and she granted it.
Eastman sued contract physician Venerio Santos and 11 Centralia correctional center employees in 2018.
He claimed they wouldn’t provide braces he needed due to congenital deformity of an orthopedic specialist.
He claimed that for a court date, they forced him to wear a “black box” device while using his cane.
In 2019, Daly boiled his complaint down to a count for deliberate indifference and a count for failure to accommodate a disability.
On his motion she ordered production of photographs and x-rays of his feet and ankles since he had been in custody.
She ordered explanations about transporting inmates to outside providers.
She granted his request to issue a subpoena for records of Carle Clinic, and denied a motion of defendants for protection from Eastman’s third set of discovery requests.
He added physician Stephen Ritz as defendant before discovery closed, and Ritz moved for summary judgment after it closed.
Eastman moved for discovery on Ritz, and Daly granted it in 2020.
Eastman moved to apply each of his exhibits across all summary judgment motions, and Daly granted it.
Last May, she ruled that he could proceed to trial on deliberate indifference.
She found Santos failed to issue him a cane or consider referring him to a specialist.
She found persistence in a course of treatment known to be ineffective might violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
She wrote that a jury could find that Santos “doggedly persisted in a course of treatment that was ineffective, resulting in significant pain.”
She found Ritz engaged only in conservative treatment on site, despite the ongoing nature of Eastman’s complaints and the failure of treatment regimens.
She found Eastman presented evidence that defendant David Downs forced him to stand 11 times in contravention of his “no prolonged standing” pass.
She found Downs disputed Eastman’s characterization of events, creating a genuine issue of material fact.
She found a jury must resolve a claim that defendants Stephen Johnson and Ted McAbee acted with deliberate indifference when Eastman asked for a wheelchair.
Last June, Daly appointed Don Kelly of the Evans and Dixon firm in St. Louis to represent Eastman.
Kelly moved to depose defendants, and defendants opposed the motion.
Daly granted it, finding such discovery would have been difficult to achieve when Eastman was unrepresented.
In December, she set trial for June.
In March, she vacated the date and set a settlement conference.
Kelly withdrew as Eastman’s counsel on March 26, due to changing jobs.
Dolan and Cody Wright, both from Evans and Dixon, replaced him.