A former inmate has filed a federal lawsuit against the Hardeman County, Tenn. Correctional Facility and the company that operates it, claiming he contracted tuberculosis in the prison because prison officials didn't take proper precautions to prevent the spread of the airborne disease.
Phillip Van Taylor III, who was incarcerated in Whiteville between June 2000 and March 2003, filed the suit last Friday in U.S. District Court in Jackson. He is seeking two judgments of less than $1 million each against the Corrections Corporation of America and the Hardeman facility under the federal civil rights statute and negligence on the part of the state, respectively.
In court papers, Van Taylor claims he was diagnosed with TB in July 2003 and that the company and the facility failed to take appropriate steps to prevent TB at the facility after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention issued recommendations in 1996.
TB is an airborne disease that affects the lungs. The lawsuit comes a month after the state Health Department and the Tennessee Department of Corrections confirmed eight tests for TB infection came back positive in the past two years at the Hardeman County Correctional Facility. Three of them were this year.
A spokesman for the Corrections Corporation of America said the company is not prepared yet to comment on the lawsuit.
Van Taylor was incarcerated at the facility between June 2000 and March 2003 after being convicted of theft of property over $1,000 and having his probation revoked, said Jennifer Johnson, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections. Taylor also has a criminal record from 1994 and 1996 involving an auto burglary, theft of property and aggravated assault, according to the department's records.
Johnson said Taylor was transferred between the Hardeman facility and the Madison County jail six times but also transported out of the Hardeman facility for other, undisclosed reasons.
In the lawsuit, Van Taylor claims he was diagnosed with tuberculosis on or about July 25, 2003, more than four months after he was released from the correctional facility.
In the meantime, inmates at the Hardeman facility are scheduled to undergo skin tests for TB next month. An educational program to detect TB also is expected to begin.
These were the recommendations made by the state Department of Corrections, Johnson said, after the Health Department looked into the eight tests that came back positive. The tests, however, did not mean there was an outbreak of the active disease at the facility.