Former Morgan Co. jail inmate wins case against jail, medical provider

MORGAN Co., Ala. (WAFF) - A former inmate of the Morgan County Jail recently won his case against the jail and the jail’s medical provider.

According to our news partner at the Decatur Daily, John Andrew Kister, 58, filed a handwritten complaint against Quality Correctional Health Care and then-Morgan County Sheriff Ana Franklin in 2016. Kister was in the Morgan County Jail between May 2015 and November 2018 on armed robbery charges. Quality Correctional Health Care is the medical provider for the Morgan County Jail.

While incarcerated in Michigan in 2005, Kister was diagnosed with priapism. Priapism is the prolonged erection of the penis with accompanying pain. Kister was diagnosed with neuropathy in 2006 due to damage to the nerve running from the bladder to the penis.

The nerve damage was caused by his priapism.

According to medical records and Kister, he was prescribed tramadol because it was determined as the only effective treatment for his condition. Quality Correctional Health Care did not prescribe Kister tramadol, instead prescribing him antidepressants. Kister said the antidepressants caused urinary retention and increased his pain.

Kister said that he complained about the jail’s “no narcotics” policy, but the sheriff and others placed him “in ‘medical observation’ three times, which is solitary confinement in the back of the medical department.”

After his complaint was thrown out by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, Kister appealed to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

The appellate court reversed the district court’s decision on Aug. 29, saying the case could go to trial.

Kister left the Morgan County Jail in 2018 and is now an inmate at Bullock Correctional Facility.

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