A lawsuit has been filed against the City of Tullahoma and Coffee County government. The suit was filed in Coffee County Circuit Court by a former inmate at the Coffee County Jail.
Terry Justin Vaughn was working on May 14, 2014, while serving time in the county jail, perform law care for a cemetery at the Citizens Cemetery located on Montclaire Street in Tullahoma. Vaughn was told to weed eat the cemetery around a tall concrete gravestone.
According to the lawsuit, the gravestone fell over crushing Vaughn’s leg. “The gravestone was not attached to the base, but rather just sitting on top of the base,” according to the lawsuit. “The gravestone was a dangerous and defective and unsafe condition, which caused Vaughn’s injury.” The suit alleges that the gravestone had deteriorated to the point where the structure had separated from its base.
The suit which was filed May 12, alleges that the gravestone had fallen over prior to the date of the accident and was “placed back on its base by unknown employees of the City of Tullahoma, acting in their capacity as employees to maintain the cemetery.”
The suit alleges that two employees of the City of Tullahoma had picked the gravestone up on prior occasions and placed it back on its base. Those same two employees worked with inmates on the grounds of the cemetery and the employees had “reported the dangerous condition.” The suit claims that the workers supervisor was “negligent in supervising the employees.”
The suit also claims that Coffee County had the duty “of reasonable care to inspect and maintain areas where inmates are required to work so to keep areas in a reasonably safe condition.” The suit also claims that the county should inquire into the safety of inmates work areas.
“Coffee County failed to keep Vaughn, an inmate, reasonably safe by failing to inspect and failing to maintain the cemetery and gravestone where inmates of the Coffee County Jail worked,” the suit alleged.
The suit ask for Vaughn to be awarded an “amount in compensatory damages to be determined to be fair and just, but not to exceed the separate maximum allowed under state law. The suit also ask for that Vaughn be awarded appropriate prejudgment and post judgment interest the cost of litigation, as well as other expenses.
This information includes only one side of the legal matter. (News Source Tullahoma News)

More than 336,000 Tennessee residents will split $10 million in refunds from health insurance companies because of a provision in the Affordable Care Act.
The refunds will average $53 per family and came about because of the medical loss ratio rule in the law. That provision requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of insurance premiums on patient care and quality improvement efforts. The refunds are for premiums paid in 2013.
For 2012, refunds to Tennesseans totaled $5.6 million.
The actual total for refunds in Tennessee is $10,037,932.