Podcast Episode: Dr. Damalcheruvu’s Impermissible Request for Admissions
Pip: What stays with me is how much of this hinges on a single question: is restraining a conscious, refusing patient medicine or is it battery?
Mara: Arkansas law has an answer, and Lynn is betting a jury will too — without any expert to explain it to them.
AI podcast. Not perfect.
Pip: When a doctor earning over six hundred thousand dollars a year decides to fight a twenty-seven-five settlement by copying someone else’s discovery requests — and gets the pronouns wrong — you have to wonder what they teach in the strategy seminars.
Mara: LauraLynnHammett has been covering a pro se lawsuit against UAMS physician Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, and today’s episode walks through the plaintiff’s responses to the doctor’s requests for admissions — a window into how this case is being argued and why the procedural choices matter.
Pip: Let’s start with what those requests actually asked, and why the plaintiff says every single one of them misses the point.
When “No Expert Needed” Is the Whole Argument
Mara: The central tension in this segment is a procedural one: Damalcheruvu’s requests for admissions all assume the plaintiff needs a qualified medical expert to prove his case. The plaintiff, Sean Lynn, argues that assumption is simply wrong under Arkansas law.
Pip: The response to the very first request lays out exactly why. Lynn had been told after his initial CT scan that no surgery was needed, then was sedated and restrained when he refused a second scan. His response to Request No. 1 reads: “I do not need an expert because the asserted negligence lies within the jury’s comprehension as a matter of common knowledge. Expert testimony is not required when the asserted negligence lies within the comprehension of a jury of laymen, such as a surgeon’s failure to sterilize her instruments or to remove a sponge from the incision before closing it.”
Mara: What this means in practice is that Lynn is not framing this as a medical malpractice case requiring specialized testimony. He is framing it as battery and false imprisonment — claims a jury can evaluate using ordinary understanding of consent, restraint, and bodily autonomy.
Pip: And he builds that argument across every single request. Requests two and three ask him to admit he has no expert on standard of care or causation. His answer is the same: a jury can read the UAMS patient rights form, watch blood test numbers deteriorate during confinement and recover within four days of leaving, and understand the labels on the drugs that were forced into him.
Mara: UAMS’s own internal record is particularly pointed here. The complaint quotes UAMS staff acknowledging that Arkansas has no law and UAMS no policy covering so-called medical holds, meaning confinement can only happen under a very narrow set of conditions.
Pip: Requests four, six, and eight ask Lynn to admit Damalcheruvu was not negligent, not a proximate cause, and not liable — all of which Lynn objects to as legal conclusions, not factual matters. He cites Hardesty v. Baptist Health, where a circuit court refused to consider an identically structured request on exactly those grounds.
Mara: And here is where the copy-paste problem surfaces. The requests served on Lynn use feminine pronouns throughout — she, her — despite Damalcheruvu being listed elsewhere with masculine pronouns. Lynn notes the discrepancy and simply adopts the pronoun preference the requests themselves reflect.
Pip: Request nine asks whether Lynn has a reasonable-cause affidavit under a specific Arkansas statute. His response: that statute was ruled unconstitutional in Summerville v. Thrower, and even if it weren’t, it only applies when expert testimony is required — which, again, he argues it is not.
Mara: By request seven, Lynn is direct about the repetition. He points out that requests five and seven ask substantially the same thing with only a word swap, and he writes that the defendants already took two weeks of his life and he will not keep answering the same question.
Pip: The post also notes that Damalcheruvu refused certified mail service until the deadline passed, then claimed service was late. The opening settlement ask was two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars against a defendant earning over six hundred thousand a year with insurance.
Mara: The surveillance video is another thread running through the responses. Lynn argues that Damalcheruvu failed to preserve footage of her interactions with him in the emergency department, and that a jury needs no expert to understand what the destruction of that evidence implies.
Pip: What stays with me is how much of this hinges on a single question: is restraining a conscious, refusing patient medicine or is it battery?
Mara: Arkansas law has an answer, and Lynn is betting a jury will too — without any expert to explain it to them.
Dr. Damalcheruvu’s Impermissible Request for Admissions
UAMS doctor Damalcheruvu forced a man to undergo a second CT Scan after he determined no immediate surgery was needed after the first scan. Because the patient refused, the staff at UAMS, where Damalcheruvu is an assistant professor, used Fentanyl and benzodiazepines to try to knock him out.
When the patient still protested, the UAMS staff member bound him naked to the hospital bed with four-point restraints.
The patient is suing Dr. Damalcheruvu. The doctor is paid over $600,000 per year and has insurance. There were over 80 individuals involved in what ended as two weeks of unlawful imprisonment and battery. The first ask made by the patient turned plaintiff was a settlement of $275,000.
Damalcheruvu would rather fight and win on a procedural issue. For example, he refused to accept service that came by certified mail, until the service period expired. Then he claimed that service was late.
It appears that Dr. Damalcheruvu’s attorney cut and pasted requests for admissions from a female defendant. The doctor’s requests use feminine pronouns. It is possible that Prashanth Damalcheruvu identifies as she/her, so the plaintiff followed suit.
Similar responses were given to the female defendant and two male defendants who had identical requests (except the name and pronouns). For RFAs, the response repeats the request before the answer. Therefore, only the responses are posted here.
Comes now Pro Se Plaintiff Sean Lynn in response to requests for admission propounded by Defendant Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu and emailed to Lynn on September 3, 2026:
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 1: Admit that you do not have testimony from a qualified medical expert to support the allegations of negligence against Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu in your Complaint.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 1: Objection. Irrelevant. I do not need an expert because the asserted negligence lies within the jury’s comprehension as a matter of common knowledge. Ark. Code Ann. § 16-114-206(a). Expert testimony is not required when the asserted negligence lies within the comprehension of a jury of laymen, such as a surgeon’s failure to sterilize her instruments or to remove a sponge from the incision before closing it. Mitchell v. Lincoln, 366 Ark. 592, 598, 237 S.W.3d 455, 460 (2006). I am questioning Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D.’s decision to force me not to recover from my initial head injury at home without the use of pharmaceuticals; and her failure to follow UAMS policy as explained in language lay persons can understand on the form UAMS PATIENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBLITIES. A copy of the 2023 version of the form is attached as Exhibit 22. Neither Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. nor any other UAMS employee gave me a copy or alerted me to its existence. My mother found it on the internet after I returned home.
The law regarding involuntary confinement and non-consensual harmful or offensive contact is easy to understand. There are model jury instructions that are understood by jurors without any expert, other than the judge, explaining the law.
Arkansas law is clear that when a patient seeks release but is held against his will, he must be treated as an involuntary detainee with full due process protections, including a meaningful hearing with clear and convincing evidence. Von Luce v. Rankin, 267 Ark. 34, 39, 588 S.W.2d 445, 449 (1979). As in Von Luce, I was never afforded any hearing, judicial review, or due process before being confined for 14 days against my expressed wishes to leave.
The need for expert testimony specified in Ark. Code Ann. § 16-114-206(b) does not apply here. Informed consent presupposes that a patient consented to the procedure but may have done so without all information necessary to make a reasoned decision. Millsap v. Williams, 2014 Ark. 469, 14, 449 S.W.3d 291, 300. I refused treatment after the first CT Scan and blood test, when I was told there was no need for surgery. My suit is about lack of consent; not informed consent.
A jury can understand that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. did not invoke an emergency exception at any time.
The State has a due process obligation to provide appropriate medical care to persons in its custody, which must look to the intent of the State in its decision to involuntarily medicate the confined person. Singleton v. Norris, 338 Ark. 135, 138, 992 S.W.2d 768, 769 (1999). Here, it is easy to understand that chemical restraints were used by Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. to hold me for observation and to participate in the second CT scan, made on the morning of January 14, 2024.
Arkansas courts distinguish between medical negligence requiring specialized knowledge and ordinary negligence involving basic safety measures that laypeople can understand. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu’s failure to ask for preservation of the surveillance video of her interactions with me in the Emergency Department is comprehensible to any reasonable jury member. A juror can make a reasonable inference that the evidence would show that whatever “treatment” Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. performed on me was adverse to standard of care. These are not complex medical decisions requiring expert interpretation, but rather basic administrative functions that any doctor must perform competently. The systematic destruction of video evidence particularly demonstrates consciousness of wrongdoing and violates fundamental principles of evidence preservation that any layperson can understand. UAMS’s own policies required preservation of such evidence because my mother clearly stated that there would be litigation and UAMS counsel was consulted before my release. The deliberate destruction suggests Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D.’s awareness that the recorded conduct was legally problematic. Such ordinary negligence in documentation falls outside the specialized medical knowledge requiring expert testimony.
Spoliation is the destruction or significant alteration of evidence, or the failure to preserve property for another’s use as evidence in pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation; and it has long been the rule that spoliators should not benefit from their wrongdoing. Kelsay v. Wise, No. CA98-1487, 1999 WL 1203724, at *3 (Ark. Ct. App. Dec. 8, 1999).
A jury can comprehend as a matter of common knowledge the evidence that indicates that accepting an EMT’s unverified statement unattributed to a witness, claiming that I had a death defying 35-foot fall yet still presented with no other indicator for level 1, 2 or 3 activation, was a breach of Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D.’s duty. Compl. at ¶¶ 95, 11-58. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. had access to my medical record and an obligation to read it. Apparently, she[1] did not.
A jury can comprehend as a matter of common knowledge the well settled law that the violation of a safety statute is evidence of negligence. Bussell v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 237 Ark. 812, 817, 376 S.W.2d 545, 548 (1964). A jury can comprehend, without expert testimony, that it is imprudent to commit a criminal battery and false imprisonment against a man who is already injured.
For example, a person commits battery in the first degree if acting alone or with one or more other persons the person commits or attempts to commit a felony; and in the course of and in furtherance of the felony the person or an accomplice causes serious physical injury to any person under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life or another person who is resisting the felony or flight causes serious physical injury to any person. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-13-201; Compl. at ¶¶ 346-354.
A jury can comprehend as a matter of common knowledge that using physical and chemical restraints to confine a person, me, to a hospital without consent and without a lawful order is the felony of false imprisonment. Ark. Code Ann. § 5-11-103 (“A person commits the offense of false imprisonment in the first degree if, without consent and without lawful authority, the person knowingly restrains another person so as to interfere substantially with the other person’s liberty in a manner that exposes the other person to a substantial risk of serious physical injury.”); Compl. at ¶¶ 346-354.
A jury can understand, without expert testimony, that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. committed the crimes of battery and false imprisonment against me. While confining me without consent and without a lawful order, she ordered staff under her supervision and control to drug and bind me. A jury can understand that committing these crimes was negligence per se, allowing for an inference of negligence.
A jury can understand that because the medical record contains no petition or physician certification under Ark. Code Ann. § 20-9-604—and no psychiatric hold petition—there was no legal authority to hold me. Compl. at ¶¶ 57, 58, 107-114.
Regardless of which party has the burden of proof, a jury can understand that an emergency exception did not apply, without any testimony from an expert. Arkansas law establishes that medical treatment without consent constitutes battery, but provides a narrow emergency exception. See Millsap, 2014 Ark. 469. Under Ark. Code Ann. § 20-9-603:
“Emergency” means a situation in which, in competent medical judgment, the proposed surgical or medical treatment or procedures are immediately or imminently necessary and any delay occasioned by an attempt to obtain a consent would reasonably be expected to jeopardize the life, health, or safety of the person affected or would reasonably be expected to result in disfigurement or impaired faculties.
The emergency exception operates under a conjunctive two-pronged test established in Millsap: “Consent is not required when an emergency exists AND there is no one immediately available who can provide consent for the patient.” Millsap, 2014 Ark. 469 at 13, 449 S.W.3d at 299. Both conditions must be satisfied for the exception to apply, meaning the plaintiff can defeat the emergency doctrine by disproving either prong. Here, I was of sound mind when I initially refused treatment, subsequent intoxication was caused by the medical providers’ battery, of which Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. was an active conspirator, and my mother was available to inform the defendants that I did not want treatment by the defendants. Further, it was clear to all but the most cognitively impaired individuals that I wanted to leave and I had reason and the right to leave.
A jury can comprehend, using a small amount of common knowledge, that damage is caused by being forced to be hospitalized overnight so Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. could force me to have my head scanned a second time. Besides the physical violation of detainment, my medical condition is an extremely private matter and Damalcheruvu required chemical sedation to be administered on me in order to obtain the expensive images she wanted to look at.
For example, courts find that mental anguish, an affront to personality, indignity, disgrace, humiliation and mortification to which the victim is subjected by battery is compensable. Browder v. Gahr, 258 Ark. 992, 996–97, 530 S.W.2d 359, 362 (1975).
A jury can comprehend that damalcheruvu, owing me a duty, failed to act to release me from imprisonment, therefore was a proximate cause of the damages I sustained from the time she should have tried to release me. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. is particularly liable. She was an assistant professor collecting $584,976 per year salary. Yet she approved of the imprisonment and battery committed on January 13, 2024 that continued to January 27, 2024.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 2: Admit that you do not have testimony
from a qualified medical expert willing to testify that Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu failed to meet the applicable standard of care in his medical care and treatment of Sean Lynn.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 2: Objection. Irrelevant. I do not need an expert because the standard of care that I assert Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. failed to meet lies within the jury’s comprehension as a matter of common knowledge.
A jury can understand that the majority of doctors in Arkansas studied or did a residency at UAMS. UAMS set the standard in Arkansas, as dismal as it is. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. violated almost every one of the patient rights defined by UAMS, including the right to refuse treatment and to leave UAMS against the advice of the health care providers, to the extent permitted by law. Compl. at ¶ 93.
UAMS admitted on the record generated by UAMS staff: “Arkansas has no law (and UAMS, no policy) that covers so-called ‘medical holds,’ which means that the ability to hold a patient who wants to leave AMA can only happen in a very limited set of conditions where the team can show a significant risk of imminent harm could befall the incapacitated patient should they leave the hospital.” Compl. at ¶ 94. It does not take a brain surgeon to explain that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. violated this standard.
A procedure performed without a valid consent would be outside the standard of care. Haupt v. Kumar, 103 Ark. App. 298, 300, 288 S.W.3d 704, 706 (2008).
Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. did not petition a court with a statement that claimed a need to override patient autonomy. Presumably, a competent doctor in Arkansas files a petition before overriding authority, unless the doctor knows the petition will be denied. It is easy to understand the triage report, initial test results and the words Dr. Bruce wrote at about 10 p.m. on the first night of the confinement: “Suspect his exam will get worse – ICU for close monitoring[.]” Compl. at ¶¶ 55, 56. Suspicion is not imminent need that would allow Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. to vary from the standard of care of allowing me bodily autonomy.
A jury will also understand that every drugging and procedure that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. subjected me to after my right to leave UAMS Medical Center was violated by her1 was harmful or offensive.
The need for expert testimony specified in Ark. Code Ann. § 16-114-206(b) does not apply here. Informed consent presupposes that a patient consented to the procedure but may have done so without all information necessary to make a reasoned decision. Millsap v. Williams, 2014 Ark. 469, 14, 449 S.W.3d 291, 300.
A jury can understand the reasonable inference from the failure to ask for the preservation of surveillance video. Spoliation is the destruction or significant alteration of evidence, or the failure to preserve property for another’s use as evidence in pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation; and it has long been the rule that spoliators should not benefit from their wrongdoing. Kelsay, No. CA98-1487, 1999 WL 1203724, at *3 (Ark. Ct. App. Dec. 8, 1999).
Further, a jury needs no expert to explain Damalcheruvu’s failure to check for consent, ask for consent or contact my family, whose numbers were in my cell phone.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 3: Admit that you do not have testimony from a qualified medical expert that there was an act or omission on the part of Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. that was a proximate cause of injury or damage to Sean Lynn.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 3: Objection. Irrelevant. I do not need an expert because the fact there was an act or omission on the part of Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. that was a proximate cause of injury or damage to me lies within the jury’s comprehension as a matter of common knowledge.
Advertisements for the drugs Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. forced into me are required to be written comprehensible to an ordinary person. They include side effects, warnings, precautions, and contraindications of the drugs. 21 C.F.R. § 202.1. I intend to read the warnings from each drug Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. forced into me to the jury. I am not an expert and I understand those labels. So will the jury.
The jury can easily comprehend that there was foreseeable harm and injury to a person who wants to go to sleep in his own bed, to be bound in one position for days at a time, woken as often as captors torture their prisoners, starved, dehydrated and humiliated, instead. I accused Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. of this conduct.
A jury can easily comprehend Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu’s violation of my right to have a family member or representative of my choice notified promptly of my admission to the hospital. 42 C.F.R. § 482.13(b)(4).
Further, courts find that mental anguish, an affront to personality, indignity, disgrace, humiliation and mortification to which the victim is subjected by battery is compensable. Browder, 258 Ark. at 996–97, 530 S.W.2d at 362. No expert is required to show that it was foreseeable that being battered at Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D.’s direction was reasonably certain to cause the mental anguish, affront to personality, indignity, disgrace, humiliation and mortification that it caused me.
A jury can comprehend using common knowledge that it was foreseeable that forced dehydration, starvation, lack of uninterrupted sleep, administration of a pharmacology of controlled substances and being bound in one position for days at a time would foreseeably cause injury and damage. The same jury can easily understand that my claim that because Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu was a supervising assistant professor at the time of the false imprisonment and battery, she did not discourage those working under her from continuing with the false imprisonment and battery, and she “ordered” the conduct, that she was a proximate cause of the injury and damage.
A jury can comprehend using common knowledge that the numbers on the blood tests recorded by the defendants started in healthy range and got much worse, then within four days of leaving against medical advice, my blood was in the healthy range again.
It was foreseeable that I would be traumatized by being falsely imprisoned and battered as that is a natural consequence of Damalcheruvu’s conduct. Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Yancey, 178 Ark. 147, 10 S.W.2d 22, 24 (1928).
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 4: Admit that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. was
not negligent in any way in connection with the care and treatment provided to Sean
Lynn.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 4: Objection. This request should not be considered because it is legal in nature. The firm representing Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. knows or should know that this request is impermissible. The Damalcheruvu requests are identical to the requests for admission filed and answered by the now dismissed defendants who were represented by Wright, Lindsey and Jennings LLP. (Those defendants will be named in my 42 USC 1983 federal case.) It is reasonable to believe that when Amelia H. Sandrock on behalf of Damalcheruvu accessed the WLJ requests, Ms. Sandrock also read my answers. To proceed otherwise would violate Rule 11’s admonishment to make a reasonable inquiry before certifying a document.
As per my filed answers to the WLJ defendants, Wright, Lindsey and Jennings LLP represented Baptist Health and Dr. Patrick O’Connell in a medical malpractice case in 2013. The firm propounded, “REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 4: Admit that Baptist was not negligent in the care and treatment of Vernon Hardesty.” Hardesty v. Baptist Health, 2013 Ark. App. 731, 3, 431 S.W.3d 327, 330. The circuit court did not consider Baptist’s fourth request, finding that it was legal in nature. Hardesty, 2013 Ark. App. at 4, 431 S.W.3d at 330. The same request was made on behalf of Dr. O’Connell and the lower court did not invalidate that request, erroneously, but not prejudiciously. Id. at 5, 431 S.W.3d at 331.
Objection. This is an improper request for admission because Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. knows or should know that I would not admit this; it is in direct contradiction to my complaint. The purpose of requests for admission is to decrease the costs of litigation by narrowing the issues. It is not meant to be a tool to cause busy work for a pro se litigant in the hopes that the litigant fails to respond timely.
The request for admissions within our discovery procedure is intended to eliminate the effort, expense and time involved in proving such facts as are admitted and is not intended as some new or modern legal method of winning law suits without trial. The object of the civil court trial still remains to attain justice between the parties as nearly as possible, and the rules of civil procedure, including discovery, are intended to aid in that object.
Widmer v. Fort Smith Vehicle & Mach. Corp., 244 Ark. 626, 632, 427 S.W.2d 186, 190 (1968).
Notwithstanding my objections, I deny that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. was
not negligent in any way in connection with the care and treatment provided to Sean
Lynn.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 5: Admit that Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu did not fail to meet the applicable standard of care in his medical care and treatment of Sean Lynn.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 5: I deny that Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu did not fail to meet the applicable standard of care in his medical care and treatment of Sean Lynn.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 6: Admit that there was no act or omission by Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. that was the proximate cause of injury or damage to Sean Lynn.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 6: Objection. This request should not be considered because it is legal in nature. The firm representing Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. knows this request is impermissible. The Damalcheruvu requests are identical to the requests for admission filed and answered by the now dismissed defendants who were represented by Wright, Lindsey and Jennings LLP. (Those defendants will be named in my 42 USC 1983 federal case.) It is reasonable to believe that when Amelia H. Sandrock on behalf of Damalcheruvu accessed the WLJ requests, Ms. Sandrock also read my answers. To proceed otherwise would violate Rule 11’s admonishment to make a reasonable inquiry before certifying a document.
As per my filed answers to the WLJ defendants, Wright, Lindsey and Jennings LLP represented Baptist Health and Dr. Patrick O’Connell in a medical malpractice case in 2013. The firm propounded, “REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 5: Admit that any actions or inactions on the part of Dr. Patrick O’Connell were not the proximate cause of any damages or injuries alleged in your complaint.” Hardesty, 2013 Ark. App. at 3, 431 S.W.3d at 330. The circuit court did not consider Dr. O’Connell’s fifth request, finding that it was legal in nature. Hardesty, 2013 Ark. App. at 4, 5, 431 S.W.3d at 330, 331.
Notwithstanding my objection, I deny that no act or omission by Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu was the proximate cause of injury or damage to me.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 7: Admit that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. complied with the standard of care required of him in the medical care and treatment provided to Sean Lynn.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 7: Objection. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. asked substantially the same request for admission No. 5, “Admit that Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu did not fail to meet the applicable standard of care in his medical care and treatment of Sean Lynn.” The only difference is using “complied with” in place of “did not fail to meet the applicable[.]” Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. and the other defendants already stole two weeks of my life and I will probably die sooner than if I had been allowed to heal properly in my home after jumping 10 feet from a falling ladder. Stop asking the same questions over and over.
Notwithstanding the objection, I deny that Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. complied with the standard of care required of him in the medical care and treatment provided to Sean Lynn.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 8: Admit that Dr. Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu is not liable in any way to you.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 8: Objection. As the firm representing Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. knows or should know from reading my answer to requests for admission to the exact requests (other than defendant’s name) filed in this case by the WLJ defendants, a request for admission of a purely legal matter is impermissible. A request for admission that asks a party to admit that a person is not liable is also legal in nature, as it pertains to a legal conclusion rather than a factual matter.
Where there are no facts mentioned in the request, it cannot be called an “application of facts to law.” Matter of Adoption of Dailey, 30 Ark. App. 8, 11, 784 S.W.2d 782, 783 (1989).
Notwithstanding the objection, I deny that “Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. is not liable in any way to” me.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 9: Admit that you do not have a reasonable cause affidavit against Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. from a qualified expert as required by Ark. Code Ann. § 16-114-209(b).
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 9: Objection. Irrelevant. It is also unclear as to what the affidavit would address.
Ark. Code Ann. § 16-114-209(b) was ruled as unconstitutional, because the legislature was infringing on the court’s ability to make rules concerning procedural law. See Summerville v. Thrower, 369 Ark. 231, 253 S.W.3d 415 (2007). The court concluded that § 16–114–209(b) is procedural and turned to its asserted conflict with Rule 3. Summerville, 369 Ark. at 238, 253 S.W.3d at 420. The Arkansas Constitution is clear that rules of pleading, practice, and procedures for our courts fall within the domain of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Ark. Const. amend. 80, § 3.
Summerville, 369 Ark. at 238, 253 S.W.3d at 420.
Further, before being deemed unconstitutional, the statute would not be applicable to this case. It begins, “In all cases where expert testimony is required under § 16-114-206[.]” § 16-114-209(b). I am not required to have expert testimony because the issues addressed by my claims are within the comprehension of a jury of my peers. § 16-114-206. No expert testimony is required to understood that I was falsely imprisoned and battered by Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. A jury can read the UAMS patient rights, exhibit 22, and understand that Damalcheruvu violated my right to have a family member or other person of your choosing to be notified promptly upon my admission to UAMS Medical Center; know the name of the physician who had primary responsibility for coordinating my care and the names of other health care providers who cared for me; to be informed that I was injected with Fentanyl, Benzos and other medication during the time Damalcheruvu was actively involved in my non-consensual treatment; refuse treat; and almost every other one of the listed rights.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 10: Admit that you have no evidentiary support for the allegations made in your Complaint against Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D..
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 10: I deny that I have no evidentiary support for the allegations made in my Complaint against Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D..
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 11: Admit you have no evidentiary support for the damages claimed in your Complaint.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 11: I deny that I have no evidentiary support for the damages claimed in your Complaint.
REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 12: Admit Sean Lynn’s injuries and
damages as alleged in the Complaint were due to his pre-existing medical conditions
and not a result of the medical care and treatment he received from Defendants.
RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR ADMISSION NO. 12: Objection. This request is compound and the second clause is pregnant. Damalcheruvu is referring to non-consensual, harmful and offensive contact as “medical care and treatment” instead of “battery.”
Notwithstanding my objection, I deny that my injuries and damages as alleged in the Complaint were due to my pre-existing medical conditions and not a result of the battery by the defendants as alleged in my complaint.
I, Sean Lynn, declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Arkansas that the foregoing Responses to Requests for Admission are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief.
[1] The requests for admission served on behalf of Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu show a preference for using the pronouns “She/her” so I am using her preferred pronouns.
Podcast Episode: Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
This podcast is AI generated from the YouTube video it describes. There a few small errors. For instance, the state court complaint that the sheriff held onto was not the civil rights complaint. It was state torts only.
Pip: There’s a legal maxim so old it’s practically load-bearing — justice delayed is justice denied — and it turns out the delay can start before you even get a hearing date.
Mara: That’s exactly the territory LauraLynnHammett is mapping on A Higher Law — what happens when the machinery of process service fails a pro se civil rights plaintiff at the very first step. Let’s start with that breakdown at the sheriff’s department.
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
Pip: The question here is deceptively simple: what happens to a civil rights case when the defendants never get served? Not because the plaintiff failed to act, but because the office responsible for service quietly ran out the clock.
Mara: The post documents a recorded exchange at the sheriff’s department, and the clerk’s position is stated plainly: “We have up to 120 days to get any paperwork that we get served. We have up to 120 days.”
Pip: So the upshot is this — a plaintiff operating under the court’s 120-day deadline hands papers to the sheriff’s office, not knowing that office considers itself entitled to that same window. The deadlines don’t stack; they collide, and the plaintiff loses defendants.
Mara: And the collision is documented in the transcript. The deputy noted on the returned paperwork that service would not happen in time — but that notation came after the window closed, not before. The clerk’s explanation: it’s essentially first come, first served, and when he got to the paper, it was already too late.
Pip: Nobody told the plaintiff at intake that eight days was functionally zero days for that office. A private process server, she points out in the exchange, can do same-day or two-to-three-day service. That information arrived about nine minutes too late to be useful.
Mara: The practical damage is specific. Three defendants — Dr. Elizabet Brown, Dr. Mary “Katie” Kimbrough, and Emily Gray, SLP — were not served state court summonses. The post states they will now be named in a federal suit for deprivation of constitutional rights under color of law instead.
Pip: She also flags what she sees as a Monell angle — the clerk confirmed on camera that this is standard policy and practice, not a one-off error. That confirmation, offered almost casually, is the kind of thing that turns a frustrating afternoon into a federal filing.
Mara: The post closes with a direct ask: the plaintiffs — the blogger and her adult son — are seeking legal representation on contingency from any Arkansas-licensed attorney willing to take on the case against UAMS staff. Contact is listed as bohemian_books@yahoo.com.
Pip: Due process lives downstream of service. If service fails, everything else is moot.
Mara: The gap between how process is supposed to work and how it actually moves through a sheriff’s office on a busy Tuesday — that gap is where this case is being fought.
Pip: Next time, we’ll see where the federal track takes it.
Justice Delayed is Justice Denied
The defendants who were not served state court summonses – Dr. Elizabet Brown, Dr. Mary “Katie” Kimbrough, and Emily Gray, SLP – will be named in the federal suit for deprivation of Constitutional rights under color of law.
As of September 24, 2026, the plaintiffs, this blogger and her adult son, are asking for legal representation on contingency. If you are licensed to practice law in Arkansas and are interested in getting involved with the case against UAMS staff, please contact us at bohemian_books@yahoo.com.
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO
Hello. Hi.
0:07
7 secondsWhat can I do for you? Um, well, I had a I guess you could call it an incident
0:14
14 secondswhere uh I paid for three services and um
0:22
22 secondsthey would they were like my last day to serve would be I think it was seven or
0:29
29 secondseight days out from when I uh paid for it. And so what you’re saying is you gave it to
0:36
36 secondsus too late for us to in order for us to get it serve serve it in a timely manner. Is that what you’re saying?
0:42
42 secondsNo, I’m saying that I wasn’t told that it was too late because if I had been told that it was too late, then I would
0:51
51 secondshave gone to a private um server because they can do it in same day, they do it
0:58
58 secondsin two days or three days. Um, I’ve never had anybody say that it takes more
1:04
1 minute, 4 secondsthan three days to serve someone at, you know, US, which is like a easy service.
1:11
1 minute, 11 secondsUnderstand that your paper is not the only paper that we get. We get so many, we might get up to 2,000 papers a day.
1:19
1 minute, 19 secondsAnd so nothing’s going to get served.
1:22
1 minute, 22 secondsYeah. in 8 days and we have actually up to 120 days to actually serve any paperwork that we get.
1:31
1 minute, 31 secondsUh there’s only 120 days to serve for the plaintiff only has 120 days. No, that’s for us.
1:40
1 minute, 40 secondsWhat do you mean like you have 120 days?
1:43
1 minute, 43 secondsWe have up to 120 days to get any paperwork that we get served. We have up to 120 days. Is there some policy that
1:53
1 minute, 53 secondssays that or tell me what policy I could look for?
1:57
1 minute, 57 secondsIf you go read the uh the statute, you can you can find out. Which statute?
2:03
2 minutes, 3 secondsI don’t know the number by heart. But yeah, we have up to 120 days. Ma’am, uh could you find that statute for me?
2:10
2 minutes, 10 secondsAnd No, ma’am. I’m working on other stuff. I Well, I was gonna finish my sentence and say and get it to me like sometime like maybe send me a letter or an email.
2:21
2 minutes, 21 secondsI’m not gonna do that.
2:23
2 minutes, 23 secondsSo, you basically caused me to cause uh lose some of the defendants out of a
2:31
2 minutes, 31 secondsimportant cause anything ma’am civil rights case and we didn’t cause anything. You bring those papers when you had eight days
2:38
2 minutes, 38 secondsleft to have it served. We didn’t cause anything.
2:42
2 minutes, 42 secondsSo why don’t you tell people when they come and give you the documents that you for us to are not going to be able to serve them.
2:51
2 minutes, 51 secondsThey’re not attorneys. They’re not attorneys. Okay. They’re here to take papers, right? But like isn’t it sort of like a
3:00
3 minutesSo what you’re saying is you want us to you want to bring the paper to us and you want us to go through and read your paper fine tooth and comb and to let you
3:08
3 minutes, 8 secondsknow oh this is going to be expired and we can’t do that. No ma’am you see the papers on your desk. We don’t have time for that. No, I’m just saying that
3:16
3 minutes, 16 secondsnobody told me that it would be more than like a normal amount of time for service and
3:25
3 minutes, 25 secondsthey So like Yes, ma’am.
3:30
3 minutes, 30 secondsyou you wouldn’t tell somebody that like you need to bring these to a private process server
3:38
3 minutes, 38 secondsbecause we aren’t going to be able to do it or you could go put it in the mail cuz the same day I put three in the mail as well and you know because I just
3:47
3 minutes, 47 secondswanted to see which one would get there um you know and I so some of the defendants got served by mail
3:55
3 minutes, 55 secondsand some of them I didn’t really know their address. So like that’s the ones that I brought here, but
4:04
4 minutes, 4 secondsyou know, if I had known I could have made some kind of accommodation for it or at least gone to a private
4:11
4 minutes, 11 secondsSo you’re just saying that you don’t have any specifi you’re you’re saying that your specified time to serve is 120 days.
4:20
4 minutes, 20 secondsYes, ma’am.
4:21
4 minutes, 21 secondsBut you don’t know the statute that that comes out of.
4:29
4 minutes, 29 secondsthat like that would be great is if you have some kind of a um just a time the cost.
4:36
4 minutes, 36 secondsYeah, this is just a cost. Do you have anything printed that is I don’t have anything printed on that
4:44
4 minutes, 44 secondslike when people come in here and they say I don’t know anything about this you know process service I’m a prosay
4:52
4 minutes, 52 secondslitigant can you give me something that explains it to me what you do I’m I’m pretty sure
5:02
5 minutes, 2 secondsonly if you ask but ma’am again they’re not going to go through your paperwork to look and see how how much time you have on there before it expires.
5:10
5 minutes, 10 secondsRight. So, I’m asking for that right now like because I have other I’m going to be serving more people. Mhm.
5:18
5 minutes, 18 secondsUm, I’m going to probably have to uh file like I I dismissed some people
5:28
5 minutes, 28 secondsand then I’m going to refile against them um for claims against deprivation of constitutional rights under color of law.
5:38
5 minutes, 38 secondsYes, ma’am.
5:39
5 minutes, 39 secondsUm because that has a three-year statute of limitations. But the claims that were in that packet that I brought for you,
5:48
5 minutes, 48 secondsyou know, to serve was claims that are too late for me to file again at
5:56
5 minutes, 56 secondsthis point because, you know, so I’m trying to find out now.
6:01
6 minutes, 1 secondUsually when somebody does paperwork pro, they usually know what they’re doing or they have
6:08
6 minutes, 8 secondscontacted an attorney to get or find out how they should Have the papers served or not served?
6:17
6 minutes, 17 secondsWell, if they’re prosay, then they’re not contacting an attorney. I mean, you can look it up.
6:24
6 minutes, 24 secondsI I That’s what I’m doing. I’m coming here and asking you because you do this all the time.
6:29
6 minutes, 29 secondsYou’re not looking it up. You want me to go look it up. I’m not No, I’m asking you if you have that.
6:34
6 minutes, 34 secondsOkay. And so you have no no information that you will uh typically give to I
6:42
6 minutes, 42 secondsmean they didn’t give me any information but I have gone to other in fact I’ve gone in in um Faulner County
6:50
6 minutes, 50 secondsthey do have like an information packet when you go to get service done.
6:55
6 minutes, 55 secondsLet me see. You could probably go upstairs to the clerk’s office. They will probably have that paperwork for you. Okay. We don’t have any down here.
7:02
7 minutes, 2 secondsOkay. So you you’re just saying 120 days is like and because the other thing was
7:09
7 minutes, 9 secondsthey never even attempted the service because they and he wrote on there the de the deputy wrote that um
7:18
7 minutes, 18 secondsno they could serve in time for that it was not going to be served in time. Mhm.
7:23
7 minutes, 23 secondsSo he looked to see when it was supposed to be served after it was too late, but he didn’t look before.
7:33
7 minutes, 33 secondsAgain, it’s almost like a first come, first serve situation. And with that being said,
7:42
7 minutes, 42 secondswhen he got to the paper, it was too late for him to make an attempt on it. So that is why he sent it back to court.
7:51
7 minutes, 51 secondsOkay.
7:53
7 minutes, 53 secondsAnd I’m sorry I’m wearing sunglasses. I just forgot [laughter] I forgot to bring my clear glasses and I really didn’t even expect to come and talk to you. I
8:01
8 minutes, 1 secondcame to file some papers in the case cuz they aren’t the only defendants.
8:06
8 minutes, 6 secondsYes, ma’am. But um you know like we’re potentially gonna lose those defendants
8:12
8 minutes, 12 secondsand I want to know what re like what I can
8:20
8 minutes, 20 secondsdo what the sheriff’s department is going to do because I don’t think that
8:27
8 minutes, 27 secondsit was properly handled. Um but you’re saying that that is your policy and practice is exactly what you
8:35
8 minutes, 35 secondsdid to me. So you didn’t like single me out. I wasn’t singled out as like, oh, she’s suing our friends, so we’re not
8:43
8 minutes, 43 secondsgonna serve them or it’s not about not serving anybody. If we get it in a timely manner, then we have enough time to actually make
8:51
8 minutes, 51 secondsattempts on it. But you brought us paperwork that was going to expire in 8 days. So that’s your policy and practice. Yes.
8:58
8 minutes, 58 secondsOkay, then I’ll just file a manel claim. Thank you.
9:09
9 minutes, 9 secondsOh, okay. So, that does seem like, you know, I’m going to try to flip this around.
9:18
9 minutes, 18 seconds[snorts]
9:18
9 minutes, 18 secondsThat does seem like a good manel case because she’s saying that that’s their policy and practice is that they, you
9:26
9 minutes, 26 secondsknow, take people’s summons and they don’t tell them uh
9:33
9 minutes, 33 secondslike that it’s going to be potentially 120 days before they get to serve it,
9:41
9 minutes, 41 secondswhich is seems really odd to me, but Um,
9:51
9 minutes, 51 secondsand then that she wouldn’t tell me the statute or look it up and email it to
9:58
9 minutes, 58 secondsme. So like even when you get a parking ticket, it’s got the statute printed on it. Even when you get like if you get
10:07
10 minutes, 7 secondsany kind of a ticket for motor vehicle uh you know speeding or didn’t come to a
10:15
10 minutes, 15 secondsfull and complete stop at a stop sign, whatever it is, they’re going to give you a beautiful courthouse, isn’t it?
10:25
10 minutes, 25 secondsBut they’re going to give you a ticket that has a statute printed on it. like they’re not just going to say, “Oh, you
10:34
10 minutes, 34 secondsknow, this is just the way we do things here.” that they actually have to have
10:41
10 minutes, 41 secondslike a reason to do things the
Pro Se Prisoner v. Pulaski County Sheriff Deputies
If I had to bet money, the sheriffs will win. But should they?
Procedurally, the pro se falls way below the mark. But the sheriffs, who are represented by a licensed attorney, have the lazy defense.
For one thing, the sheriffs made a blanket denial. These are rarely allowed. And an averment not denied (properly) is an averment admitted.
Anyhow, this case came to my attention as I began my research about the Pulaski County Sheriff’s liability for failing to attempt service on three of the defendants in my case against UAMS. 60cv-26-216 in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
Hopefully a licensed attorney will try to help Mr. Rice, and a licensed attorney will try to help my son Sean Lynn.
UAMS Doctor Jordan Greer Admitted to Use of Chemical Restraints
The medical record contains a striking admission by UAMS physician Jordan Greer concerning the use of powerful sedating drugs on a patient who was trying to leave the hospital:
“Patient lacks capacity and continues to try and elope. Will give zyprexa, phenobarb, and ativan PRN. Will add precedex as needed for safety of patient and staff.”
The significance of this statement becomes clearer when the medications are identified.
Zyprexa (olanzapine) is an antipsychotic medication that can cause sedation. Phenobarbital is a barbiturate and central nervous system depressant used as a sedative and anticonvulsant. Ativan (lorazepam) is a benzodiazepine with sedating effects. Precedex (dexmedetomidine) is a sedative administered by infusion and used in intensive-care and procedural sedation.
In other words, Dr. Greer’s note did not merely describe an attempt to persuade a patient to remain in the hospital. It documented a plan to use multiple medications capable of depressing the central nervous system because the patient was attempting to leave and was considered unable to make his own decisions.
The medical record itself is therefore important. It uses the language of “safety,” but it also expressly connects the proposed administration of these drugs to the patient’s attempts to “elope.” When medication is used to prevent a person from leaving rather than to treat a medical condition, the question of whether the medication is functioning as a chemical restraint deserves careful scrutiny.
This is not an assertion that every use of these medications constitutes a chemical restraint. Their legitimate medical uses are well established. The question here is what purpose they served in this particular case—and the doctor’s own words provide unusually direct evidence of that purpose.
After a clear threat of litigation, the patient was allowed to leave the hospital against medical advice, without further battery by the UAMS staff. He rested comfortably at home and expressed his understanding that he was a prisoner at UAMS for the prior two weeks, despite the drug cocktail forced on him.
Podcast Episode: Police Try the Old Switch-a-Roo With Excessive Force Photos
Pip: There's a certain audacity to submitting a photograph as evidence of someone's condition after an arrest — and then having that photograph turn out to be from three months earlier. Bold strategy.
Mara: This episode covers a case from LauraLynnHammett's reporting at A Higher Law — an excessive force lawsuit where the key evidence turned out to be the wrong photograph entirely. Let's start with what the documents actually show.
Police Try the Old Switch-a-Roo With Excessive Force Photos
Pip: The central tension here is a simple one: two booking photographs, two completely different stories, and a court trying to figure out which one reflects what actually happened the night of Jacob Earls' arrest on August 11, 2009.
Mara: The setup matters. Earls, representing himself, produced Exhibit 1 — a jail document showing him beaten and unconscious. He explained how he found it, and the court quoted him directly: "I found it in my — the day I was leaving to go to Brickeys, Arkansas, to start my six-month PD, I found it in the trash bag in my clothes and it was in my personal property. They have plastic Ziplock bags that they seal when they — like your wallet, your watch. The picture was in there, folded in half. I took it and I slipped it in my pocket because I knew it was crucial. It was crucial evidence. I knew that."
Pip: He found his own evidence in a Ziploc bag in a trash bag in his clothes. And he was right — it was crucial.
Mara: Exhibit 2, by contrast, showed Earls without a scratch, wearing what the court describes as a very colorful button-down dress shirt. Officer Ring and his witnesses insisted that was the August 11 booking photo. A detainee named William Shaw directly contradicted them, testifying that when Earls arrived at the detention center that night, he "was totally out" — and that staff were laughing while holding his head up for the picture.
Pip: Officer Ring's own account of that evening has a very relaxed quality — chatting about parents and grandmothers, wishing Earls good luck on the way out. A courteous arrest, by all accounts.
Mara: The court wasn't satisfied with the record and ordered defense counsel to produce a full accounting of all photographs. What came back was an affidavit from Brian Agee, a software developer at the company running the detention center's system. Agee confirmed that the colorful-shirt photo — Exhibit 2, the one Ring's entire defense rested on — was taken May 18, 2009. Nearly three months before the arrest.
Pip: So the photograph offered to prove Earls had no injuries after the August arrest was taken in May.
Mara: And Exhibit 1, the one showing Earls beaten and unconscious, was confirmed to come from a document created August 11, 2009, at 2:12 a.m. The court called Ring's reliance on Exhibit 2 "wholly rejected" and denied summary judgment, finding that real questions of fact remained about whether excessive force was used.
Pip: The system usually makes it hard to prove what happened. Earls found his proof in a Ziploc bag in a trash bag — and it held up.
Mara: That's the through-line here: accountability is difficult, documentation matters, and sometimes the evidence survives anyway.
Pip: When the photograph you submitted as proof of innocence predates the arrest by three months, the court tends to notice.
Mara: The deeper question is what happens in cases where the documentation doesn't survive — or was never found in a pocket. That's the territory worth watching.
Police Try the Old Switch-a-Roo With Excessive Force Photos
This case started with the plaintiff representing himself. The police officers acted as if no one would discover their ruse.
Why do police in Arkansas think they can get away with covering up misconduct by government actors? Probably because they usually get away with it.
Outtakes from the proposed findings:
I. INTRODUCTION
Before the Court is Defendant Matthew Ring’s Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 37). Plaintiff, Jacob Thomas Earls, an inmate at the Delta Regional Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction, initiated this lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and alleges that Officer Ring of the Paragould Police Department used excessive force when arresting him on August 11, 2009.
II. HEARING
On August 16, 2010, the Court held an evidentiary hearing and took sworn testimony from the parties and their respective witnesses. The hearing centered on two book-in photographs received into evidence.¹ Exhibit 1 is an undated jail document entitled “Inmate Information Sheet,” which contains a photograph showing Earls beaten and unconscious. (Def.’s Ex. 1.) Exhibit 2 is another jail document entitled “Booking Sheet,” which contains a photograph showing Earls without a scratch and wearing a very colorful, button down, dress shirt. (Def.’s Ex. 2.) Exhibit 2 also showed a “Book In” date of August 11, 2009.
¹ Both were admitted as Defendant’s exhibits (Hr’g Tr. 44), but Exhibit 1 came from Plaintiff.
With regard to how Mr. Earls came to possess this document, he testified as follows:
“I found it in my — the day I was leaving to go to Brickeys, Arkansas, to start my six-month PD, I found it in the trash bag in my clothes and it was in my personal property. They have plastic Ziplock bags that they seal when they — like your wallet, your watch. The picture was in there, folded in half. I took it and I slipped it in my pocket because I knew it was crucial. It was crucial evidence. I knew that.”
A. Plaintiff’s Evidence
Mr. Earls testified that in the early morning hours of August 11, 2009, Ring arrested him and, during the course of the arrest, slammed him against the police vehicle and then the ground, rendering him unconscious. (Hr’g Tr. 13.) Earls testified, “That’s the last I remember.” Id. Earls stated he believes the photograph in Exhibit 1 was taken after Ring arrested him and booked him into the Green County Detention Center on August 11, 2009.
William Shaw, a detainee at the Green County Detention Center on August 11, 2009, testified that he remembered when Mr. Earls arrived at the Detention Center that night and Earls “was totally out.” Id. at 49. Shaw stated, “When they took his picture they took his head like this and held it back, and they’re laughing and stuff because he was out.” Id. Shaw testified that the Exhibit 1 photograph accurately depicted Earls’ condition on August 11, 2009, at the Green County Detention Center. Id.
B. Defendant’s Evidence
Officer Ring testified that he had, in fact, used force to arrest Earls because he was trying to flee. (Hr’g Tr. 88.) Ring stated he took Earls to the ground using a “arm-bar take down” and handcuffed him. Id. at 89. He further stated, “Once I set him in the seat, I got my flashlight out of my pocket and looked at his face. . . . There were like two small scratches but they were so minor they didn’t even draw blood. There was no blood dropping so he appeared fine.” Id.
Ring then told the Court about his interactions with Earls after the arrest. He testified as follows:
“We sat out in the patrol car taking a jaw. I don’t really remember. We talked, but I don’t remember what we talked about. I do recall once we got to the jail, Jailer Cody Oost was there behind the booking desk. Soon as we come in the door Cody Oost had made a comment about Jacob’s shirt being colorful or something and I kind of snickered back and said, yes, it’s colorful, but once I set Jacob down at the stool, I took his handcuffs off and stood just to the right of him and probably two feet from him, filled out my paperwork I had to fill out for the jail. We conversed there. I think he asked me how my parents were doing. I asked him how his grandmother was doing, and that was pretty much the end of that.”
Hr’g Tr. at 93.
Later Officer Ring told the Court the following:
“I recall [Earls] wearing a dark-colored button-up shirt. . . . Because once we got to the jail and I got him out of the car, he walked in on his own and sat down. . . . I recall briefly some of our conversations because he asked me about my parents; I asked about his grandmother, and I believe on my way out I wished him good luck, and that’s the last I saw him.”
Id. at 100-101.
Throughout the hearing, Officer Ring asserted that Mr. Earls looked as pictured in Exhibit 2 after his arrest. When shown Exhibit 1, he steadfastly denied this photograph was taken after the August 11, 2009, arrest. Id. at 99.
Officer Marcoe testified she arrived on the scene a few minutes after Earls’ arrest. (Hr’g Tr. 112.) When asked if she took a “good look” at Mr. Earls, she stated, “I mean, I looked [at] him about as much as I would at any other person that’s under arrest, didn’t – – there was really nothing out of the ordinary from a normal day so I didn’t really take a particular look at him.” Id. She further testified that had Mr. Earls looked as pictured in Exhibit 1, “I probably would have been like, Hey, does he need an ambulance or something. I mean, from that it appears that he would have somewhat serious injuries.” Id. at 115.
Lieutenant Baldridge served as Ring’s supervisor on August 11, 2009. Id. at 121. He arrived at the scene after Ring had arrested Mr. Earls. Id. at 123-124. Lieutenant Baldridge described the scene as a “non-event.” (Hr’g Tr. 124.) When asked if the Exhibit 1 photograph depicted Earls’ condition that night, Lieutenant Baldridge answered, “Absolutely not.” Id. at 126. When asked how he could be so sure, Baldridge testified, “Because I would have noted any injuries like that and, then, that would not have been a non-event for me.” Id.
Defense witness, Officer Cody Oost, testified that he served as a jailer at the Greene County Detention Center in August 2009. The Court asked Oost if he was present when the photograph in Exhibit 1 was taken and Oost stated, “I’m believing I was because – – I mean, I’m not saying I took the picture.” Id. at 157. When defense counsel asked if the photograph was taken after Earls’ arrest, Oost testified that:
“I couldn’t testify when that picture was taken. I have no – – I just remember that picture. I don’t remember if I was even there when that picture was taken. I just remember everybody looking at that picture because, you know – – Just because of the picture. I mean it’s not every day we have a, you know, an inmate come in looking like that, you know, just acting how he was, you know, just all, you know — I don’t even remember; I couldn’t tell you why he came in looking that – -”
Id. at 162-163.
C. Post-Hearing Evidence
After hearing from the parties, the Court concluded the record was incomplete because serious questions remained about Exhibits 1 and 2, and ultimately Jacob Earls’ condition after the August 11, 2009, arrest. Therefore, the Court entered an order directing defense counsel to provide a detailed accounting of all photographs taken of Mr. Earls by the Green County Sheriff’s Department, Green County Detention Center, and Paragould Police Department. (Doc. No. 65.)
In response, defense counsel provided an Affidavit from Brian Agee, Software Developer at Tiger Correctional Services, the software company used at the Green County Detention Center. (Doc. No. 73.) Agee gave a detailed accounting of all photographs of Earls from the Green County Detention Center. He stated the Exhibit 2 photograph – that Officer Ring and his law enforcement witnesses asserted was the book-in photo from the August 11, 2009 arrest² – was actually taken May 18, 2009. (Agee Aff. p. 2 of 3; Doc. No. 73.) Agee further stated the Exhibit 1 photograph showing Earls beaten and unconscious – comes from a document “created on August 11, 2009, at 2:12:46 at the Green County Detention Center.” Id.
² Jailer Cody Oost testified he distinctly remembered this photograph from the August 11, 2009 arrest because he and Defendant Ring made fun of the shirt (Hr’g Tr. 148-149). Officer Ring testified, “Soon as we come in the door Cody Oost had made a comment about Jacob’s shirt being colorful or something and I kind of snickered back and said, yes, it’s colorful. . . .” Id. at 93.
III. ANALYSIS
In his Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 37), Ring submits essentially the same evidence presented at the August 16, 2010, evidentiary hearing. (Doc. No. 38.) He argues that during the arrest on August 11, 2009, Mr. Earls only received minor scratches and that he (Ring) did not use excessive force. Ring proposes Exhibit 2 as evidence that Jacob Earls had no notable injuries when he was booked into the Green County Detention Center. In support of his Motion, Officer Ring offers his sworn Affidavit wherein he states, “Mr. Earls did receive a few minor scratches on face (sic) from going to the ground. He did not appear to need any medical attention for the scratches.” (Doc. No. 38, p. 11). Officer Ring offers as further support of his Motion the incident report he wrote several months later, on January 30, 2010. Id. at p. 15. In this report, Officer Ring provides the same information found in his Affidavit.
While Ring vigorously defends his position that he did not use excessive force when he arrested Mr. Earls, the Exhibit 1 photograph calls into serious question the veracity of Ring’s defense. Agee has provided incontestible evidence that Jacob Earls did not appear as depicted in the photograph from Exhibit 2. This photograph was taken nearly three months earlier, on May 18, 2009. (Doc. 73-1, p. 3 of 3.) Therefore, Officer Ring’s reliance on Exhibit 2 as evidence of Earls’ post-arrest condition is wholly rejected by the Court.
Agee was unable to provide a date stamped copy of the photograph of Exhibit 1 because it is no longer in the system.³ Mr. Agee was only able to verify that the document marked as Exhibit 1 was created on August 11, 2009, at 2:12 a.m. Despite the lack of date stamp on the photograph, the Court finds Exhibit 1 highly persuasive evidence in support of Jacob Earls’ allegation of excessive force.
Accordingly, questions of material fact remain as to whether Officer Ring used excessive force when he arrested Jacob Earls on August 11, 2009. Therefore, the Court concludes that Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment should be denied.
IT IS, THEREFORE, RECOMMENDED that:
- Defendant’s Motion For Summary Judgment should be DENIED.
Podcast Episode: It ain’t legal, just because doctors get away with it.
Pip: There's a legal principle so obvious it shouldn't need saying — and yet here we are, needing to say it.
Mara: This episode covers work from LauraLynnHammett, walking the line between constitutional law school and a live medical-detention case. The territory is separation of powers, what courts actually enforce, and what the law requires even when nobody's watching. Let's start with the core argument: getting away with something isn't the same as it being legal.
It ain't legal, just because doctors get away with it.
Pip: The question this post is really asking is whether a court judgment — or the absence of one — is what makes conduct illegal. Because if the answer is yes, then enforcement is the whole of the law, and that's a very different country than the one the Constitution describes.
Mara: The post draws the line plainly. Here's the direct statement: "If the courts don't enforce the law for whatever reason, then it's still the law. And a person or entity that violates that law still violates that law. It doesn't take a proclamation of the court to make the violation a violation."
Pip: So the upshot is that impunity and legality are two separate columns. A court's silence doesn't move conduct from one to the other. That distinction matters enormously when the people violating the law have expensive attorneys and the person harmed is filing pro se.
Mara: The post gets concrete fast. The case involves a patient held at UAMS — the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences — against his will, restrained with four-point restraints after being injected with fentanyl. The medical record runs 1,300 pages and contains no notation of who physically held down a 220-pound, six-foot construction worker.
Pip: No notation. In an emergency room with surveillance cameras. That's not an oversight — that's a gap shaped exactly like accountability.
Mara: The post lists the drugs administered — fentanyl, lorazepam, diazepam, Haldol, Seroquel, Precedex, propranolol — and notes that propranolol requires a gradual wean, not a cold stop. The patient also suffered a dislocated ossicular chain, leaving him functionally hard of hearing. A $46,000 bill arrived at his home after discharge.
Pip: And the legal argument anchoring all of this is the Fourth Amendment — the right to be secure in your person, free from seizure without probable cause. UAMS is a state institution, which means its staff are state actors, and state actors are bound by that amendment whether a judge ever rules on it or not.
Mara: The post is also candid about procedural setbacks — a filing saved instead of submitted the night before a trip, a judge striking the opposition without stated rationale. The honest admission is that the doctors may escape on procedural grounds. But the post holds that this outcome would not retroactively legalize what happened.
Pip: Getting away with it and being innocent of it — those have never been the same thing, and constitutional law school, apparently, is a good place to sharpen that distinction.
Mara: The closing ask is practical: if you know a federal attorney licensed in Arkansas, leave contact information in the comments.
Pip: The law exists whether or not anyone enforces it. That's either reassuring or terrifying, depending on which side of it you're standing on.
Mara: Next time, we'll see where that argument goes — in the classroom and in the courtroom.
It ain’t legal, just because doctors get away with it.
Good morning. I’m here at Bowen School of Law. I get here early so that I don’t have to deal with traffic, but I come across the street, and we’re going to call this Day Two of our physical health journey, Round Two.
I’m taking a walk. Hopefully, you’ll maybe pause the video and go get some shoes on and go out and take a walk, too.
I should start doing these live. I don’t know if I can do them live on my phone, but I think my son does. He’s at Peckerwood23; that’s his channel, and he’s kind of an interesting guy. You might find something fun to watch on that.
But since I’m not live, I’m going to have to talk about something—a one-sided conversation—and hopefully you’ll put some comments down below, and I could talk about those and answer questions or respond to your comments at a later time.
But for now, I’m going to talk about the separation of powers. That’s what we’re studying in constitutional law. This is the first semester, and I don’t know—maybe I’ve been here—it was August 24th was the first day of classes, so now it’s what, September something? I’m losing track already. I think maybe we’re about three weeks into it.
We’ve been talking about the United States Constitution. Who would have ever suspected in a class on constitutional law?
So, the first thing I want to say is: read it. It really only takes maybe two hours, and you could find copies on the internet. I put a link to, or I put one of the channels on one of my playlists about law lectures. It’s worth a listen, and that’s just someone reading the entire Constitution. It takes maybe an hour and ten minutes to read it out loud.
You know, I never read the Bible until I was like 40 years old. I’m 64 now. And so, when I finally read it, I’m like, “Wow, there’s so much that comes out of it that you, you know, like a person who hasn’t grown up in the church or has read the Bible, New or Old Testament, or, like me, I had gone to a Jewish camp when I was young, and I’m a Christian now, but I was for a long time from a secular Jewish family, and I loved going to this Jewish camp. So my parents let me go, and we were praying in Hebrew.
So I didn’t even know what I was saying. We were singing in Hebrew. So I’ll sing you a song. This is in Hebrew.
Well, and they—you could sing the same words in a bunch of different melodies.
I’m going to change the view here so you can see what I see because it’s very cool.
So, there are a whole mess of geese. I don’t know if geese are ducks. I think they’re geese because they have kind of longish necks.
Well, okay, that’s it. Maybe you’ll see them when I walk past.
So I used to pray in Hebrew, not even knowing what I was saying. And then when I read the Bible, I learned that that’s a psalm, and it says, “Blessed are the brothers who live together as one or in unity.”
And so what I’m telling you is: go out and read the Constitution of the United States. It’s so interesting to know how our government is supposed to run.
And one of the big issues is the separation of powers. So the first three articles are—the first one sets up Congress. That’s the Senate and the House of Representatives. And it gives them their powers, which—I think they’re doing okay.
The second article is the presidency, the executive branch, and I’d say that Congress holds the purse strings and the executive branch holds the sword.
So what does the third branch, the judiciary, do? And this is all federal. The states also usually set up the system very similar to the federal system, but they’re kind of like a vertical separation of powers, where the three branches are like a horizontal separation of powers.
And so why I’m talking about this today is because the judiciary is only supposed to enforce the laws that Congress has made and that the president has not vetoed and had Congress come back with a two-thirds vote to overturn it. And I don’t know if that’s in both houses or if that’s—anyways, I know that there’s a two-thirds. I think it might only be the Senate that has to do that. I’ll have to look that up before my first exam.
So the courts are really there to enforce law. And if the courts don’t enforce the law for whatever reason, then it’s still the law. And a person or entity that violates that law still violates that law.
It doesn’t take a proclamation of the court to make the violation a violation.
It’s like if a husband cheats on his wife. I don’t think—I had a boyfriend that used to cheat on me. Does he cheat on his wife even if she doesn’t catch him? Does he cheat on his wife even if she doesn’t go to court for divorce and have a judge say, “I’m giving her a divorce based upon infidelity of the husband”?
No, he cheated on her. It’s done. He’s a cheat. He’s an infidel.
Well, the same thing happens every day with big businesses and powerful people who have the money to pay for attorneys who are schmoozy with the judges, who have studied law and know all the rules and are going up against people who may not have representation because they don’t have money. And no lawyer wants to take the case on contingency because, you know, for one thing, he knows he’s going to go up against these big attorneys, and it’s going to cost a fortune, and then you may lose anyways even if you have the best case and you argue it properly.
That’s happened to me before.
I lost a case against a debt collection company, Portfolio Recovery Associates, and they were 100% wrong, and they lied, and I could prove that they were lying. And the judge, Lee P. Rudowski, he would just—like, he lied, and he admitted to one of the lies but then didn’t call it a lie. He said, like, “Oh, Laura’s right.” You know, we accidentally changed a quote in quotation marks of what she said by dropping off the important half of the sentence that changes its meaning completely.
Sort of like taking out the word “not” and then putting it in quotations.
And so, you know, sometimes you’re just up against a corrupt judge. And unfortunately, very often that’s the case now. And that’s kind of why I’m on this subject because, like, right now I’m in a case against doctors at UAMS.
So they don’t like being lumped together as the defendants. They want me to say individually what each one did. Like, Dr. Damalcheruvu said, “We will keep this patient who is refusing treatment.”
And then other doctors and nurses, like nurse Nathan Ernst, shot fentanyl into the patient so that he would be immobilized. I mean, it was a pretty strong dose, too. It was enough to knock someone out.
I don’t think it knocked him out because the patient was then restrained to the bed railings with four-point restraints by some unnamed people, even though it was in the emergency room, which has surveillance cameras.
There is no notation in the 1,300-page medical record as to who physically held down this 220-pound, 6-foot-tall construction worker.
So it was probably more like three or four people.
And I did observe later, in the two weeks of terror that the doctors and nurses at UAMS caused, I did see three, four, maybe more of the doctors and nurses and undisclosed people. Maybe they were with the security team, but they were all tackling him, chasing him down hallways as he tried to escape.
And then they sent a bill once I got him out against medical advice by threatening a lawsuit. And they went and talked to their legal team, and they talked to the police and found out that the police department is not allowed to stop the man from leaving.
Though apparently they thought it was okay to not help him leave. But they’re wrong about that. There’s case law, and I’ll go into that another time.
But anyways, these doctors and nurses sent a bill for $46,000 to his home after he got out.
While he was there, they dislocated the ossicular chain in his left ear so that he’s now practically deaf.
He still hears, but he says it sounds like everybody’s mumbling, and he has to read lips and say, “What? What?” And it’s impossible to get his attention if you’re behind him. You have to go up and tap him on the shoulder.
So his alarm doesn’t work for him. He can’t differentiate the alarm from just the noises that you’re hearing in the background here. It all sounds the same to him. So he’s not sure if it’s street noise or the alarm.
So they did that. They starved and dehydrated him and gave him just a huge list of drugs, like fentanyl, lorazepam, diazepam, Haldol, Seroquel, Precedex, propranolol, which you aren’t allowed to stop cold turkey. You have to wean off of it, or possible death, I guess.
The generic for Keppra, for anti-seizure, which is something that he would have considered using. But it’s not mandatory that you use it. And I don’t think—I don’t think he would have decided to use it because he didn’t feel bad.
So they had just made up this whole, like, urgent-care need or this ICU, intensive-care need, that didn’t exist.
But it sure was good for their pocketbooks, helping to generate income for UAMS to pay its employees.
There are doctors like Joseph Margolick. I think he’s making like over $500,000 a year. Can you imagine? That’s like most people in ten years.
And he’s got an outstanding warrant against him, by the way, but he’s still practicing medicine against unwilling patients at UAMS.
So, the reason why I’m talking about all this—I’m going to go back towards school now—the reason that I’m talking about all this is that they might get away with it because I’m making mistakes.
My son can’t do any of the paperwork.
He’s like, “Oh, they gave him aphasia, too,” which is loss of his vocabulary.
So, for the last two years, he’s been trying to build his vocabulary back up. But he talks really slowly. If you think I talk slow, you should listen to him. And he has to think about every word.
And he doesn’t have internet for some reason. I don’t know how he does his YouTube channel. He goes and uses somebody else’s internet to upload.
But anyways, these—Dr. Margolick, Britney Beumeler, who’s a nurse, Dr. Damalcheruvu, Dr. Elizabeth Brown, who is a resident, who is like, “Do not go to Dr. Elizabeth Brown for orthopedics.” Oh, no. This woman, she should be in jail. She literally should be in jail at this moment for having committed the crimes of false imprisonment.
And so anyways, these people are going to probably get away with it on procedural issues, such as I sent Dr. Damalcheruvu his summons and complaint, but he did not accept it from the post office until it was past the time that I was allowed to serve. So now he’s using that as an excuse to try to get the case dismissed.
And then I wrote an opposition to his motion to dismiss.
And I finished at like 11:30 at night the day before I left to go visit my son in Las Vegas, where he had no internet. At least he didn’t have internet at his house. Maybe he did have internet. But anyways, I wasn’t going to have my computer. I know that. And I wanted to take a break from typing because my fingers have osteoarthritis and I was in extreme pain.
So anyways, I was going to visit my son, and at 11:30 at night, I hit save instead of send, and okay.
So apparently because the document got saved rather than into the queue, and I didn’t know that until it was also too late, Judge Connors decided that they should not only strike our response but strike the letter that explains why that happened.
So I don’t know how she can possibly rationalize that. She didn’t give any rationale. She just said, “Okay, I’m going to give them—I’m going to give Dr. Damalcheruvu what he’s asking for, which is to strike everything that was filed regarding that opposition.”
So it was as if the opposition never existed.
So now let’s say that the doctors get away with it in court, like there’s never any court case. And I’m not saying that’s going to happen because there’s more ways than one to skin a cat, and I’m going to try them all. But let’s say that I fail.
And does that mean that it’s okay for one human to drug another human against his will and then tie him up naked and starve him and dehydrate him and stick catheters up his genitals and punch him in the ear when he doesn’t obey?
No. There’s this little pesky thing called the Fourth Amendment, where a person is supposed to be secure in their person, and they’re not supposed to be seized without a reasonable cause to issue a warrant.
Probable cause. That’s another one I’ve got to look up and make sure I get the words exactly right for the test.
But you get the gist.
So the point is that just because you get away with something in terms of a judgment from a court does not mean that what you did is not illegal. It does not mean that you complied with the law.
It does not mean that you complied with the statutes that say that doctors have to petition a court for permission to keep a patient who is refusing treatment.
And it does not mean that doctors don’t have to comply if they’re state actors, which people at UAMS—the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences—they are state actors, and state actors must comply with the Fourth Amendment.
So, hey, if anyone out there knows an attorney who can work in the federal court in Arkansas, give me a note in the comments with a phone number to call or text, or whatever, however you want me to contact them, because we would love to have a professional on this.
Thank you.
