Audio clip
James Logan
PDF: Erlanger VS. Bradley County Ruling
Seven years ago a shootout at a Cleveland, Tenn., bar left the local government with a hefty tab for a shooter’s medical expenses.
Now the Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled Bradley County doesn’t have to pay.
On Monday, the court dismissed a 2001 lawsuit filed against Bradley County by Erlanger Health System. Erlanger wanted the county to pay $117,000 in medical bills for a patient wounded in a 2001 shootout with police and held on a “police hold” in the hospital.
The court ruled that since the suspect was not “confined in jail” at the time he was transported to Erlanger hospital for treatment, the county is not liable for his medical care.
Bradley County Mayor D. Gary Davis said Monday the ruling was long overdue.
“I never will forget the day I got the bill,” Mayor Davis said. “Without being labeled a tightwad, (I believe) you don’t pay it unless you find out it’s your bill. In this case I never could find it was Bradley County’s responsibility to pay that.”
Erlanger hospital officials declined to comment Monday.
Bradley County’s attorney, James F. Logan Jr., said that before this ruling, county government was considered liable for the medical care of someone who was shot by police while committing a crime.
“That wasn’t right and the Supreme Court said so” in this ruling, he said.
The decision overturned a Tennessee Court of Appeals ruling holding Bradley County responsible for almost $52,000 of expenses incurred while the patient was under “police hold” at Erlanger.
According to court records, Brandon Ramsey was shot March 24, 2001, at Drea’s Kitchen, a bar in Cleveland. He was taken to Bradley Memorial Hospital (now SkyRidge Medical Center) and then to Erlanger in Chattanooga.
Bradley County investigators obtained a police hold for Mr. Ramsey on March 25, but it was removed April 5 after Mr. Ramsey “caused some trouble” at the hospital and Bradley County authorities refused to provide a guard, records show.
Mr. Ramsey left the hospital April 21. He was indicted in May and arrested six months later in Cobb County, Ga., then returned to Bradley County, records show.
The high court opinion states that Mr. Ramsey was not “a prisoner confined to the jail” when he was admitted to Erlanger, and that being under a police hold is not sufficient to trigger county liability for the bills.
The decision also overruled a prior Court of Appeals case involving a similar issue between Erlanger and Bradley County. The ruling said that a patient under “police hold” would be considered “confined in the jail,” and the county would be liable for expenses.
Mr. Logan said the question remains whether care provided to an inmate outside the jail should be paid by the county, by the patient’s insurance if he has it, or treated by the hospital as indigent care.
Health care reporter Emily Bregel has worked at the Chattanooga Times Free Press since July 2006. She previously covered banking and wrote for the Life section. Emily, a native of Baltimore, Md., earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Columbia University. She received a first-place award for feature writing from the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists’ Golden Press Card Contest for a 2009 article about a boy with a congenital heart defect. She ...
