On June 18, 2013, Meagan was hired by Dale T. Smith and Sons Meat Packing to do office cleaning type work. One of the co-owners of the meat packing plant was also the religious Bishop for the congregation that Meagan attended. She was hired to keep the bathroom, conference room tables, break room tables, and carpets clean in the upstairs office area. Meagan worked for Dale T. Smith and sons until September 27, 2013, when she ended her employment to go back to school. The HR director noted that Meagan was a great employee when she started, but in the last couple of weeks that she worked there her work had slipped. It was obvious that she didn’t want to be there anymore. She started to come in later and later in the evenings.
Angel was hired by Dale T. Smith and Sons Meat Packing on August 19, 2013. During his hiring interview he told the HR director that he was friends of Meagan’s, and that he heard through her that there was a possibility of him getting a job there. The HR director at Dale T. Smith and Sons says that Angle started out very competent with his job, and that he had good skills. But he became distracted towards the end of December 2013. He would frequently miss days.
On December 24, 2013, Angel and Meagan came to the office at Dale T. Smith and Sons Meat Packing and talked to the HR director. Angel gave him a note from a local Instacare that explained that he had hit his head and excused him from work from the 24th to the 27th. He then missed work until the 27th of December. He came into work on the 27th and worked a half day. He then did not return to work until January 7, 2014. The story he told the HR director was very confusing.
I have included the transcript of the conversation the lawyer had with the HR director during the Meagan Jury Trial on May 5, 2015.
- 7 A. Yeah, it was to discuss whether he was going to
- 8 continue to work for me or what was going on.
- 9 Q. Did you have occasion to discuss this –- then his
- 10 story about how he –-
- 11 A. Yeah.
- 12 Q. –- had the head injury?
- 13 A. We had a pretty frank conversation, and I just said,
- 14 “You know, what’s going on?” and he proceeded to tell me that
- 15 he had hit his head on the bathroom door due to his, as he
- 16 called it, martial arts training or martial arts skills and
- 17 his strength that as he was using the toilet and was startled
- 18 by the dog, that he somehow spun around and ran into the door,
- 19 and that had caused his head injury.
- 20 Q. So did he tell you whether the door was open or closed?
- 21 A. My understanding was the door was open as he tried to
- 22 describe how the bathroom –- I haven’t seen it myself, but that
- 23 the door was open, and that as he spun around, he hit his head
- 24 on the open door.
- 25 Q. Okay, did he tell you whether or not he had been to
- -1311-
- 1 any medical providers about that?
- 2 A. Yeah, the note that I have –- or the work release note
- 3 from the 24th said he had gone to be seen for that.
- 4 Q. When you talked to him on January 7th, did he tell you
- 5 he’d been to any further doctors?
- 6 A. No, he was telling –- he had come to tell me that he
- 7 was going to see a doctor, a specialist, as he had indicated.
- 8 Q. Did you ask him who the doctor was?
- 9 A. I did. I had asked him, you know, which doctor. I’ve
- 10 got a brother that is in medical sales, and I know a lot of the
- 11 doctors in the area. Asked him, you know, who the doctor was.
- 12 He didn’t remember. I asked him what kind of doctor he was
- 13 going to see, and he couldn’t tell me.
- 14 I asked if it was a neurologist. He says, “Yes, that’s
- 15 it. It’s a neurologist.” I says, “Well, what are they going
- 16 to do?” He says, “I don’t know. We talked about an MRI and
- 17 what that would do. I had to explain to him what an MRI was.
- 18 Q. When you were talking to him, were you observing his
- 19 demeanor?
- 20 A. Yeah.
- 21 Q. What was it?
- 22 A. He was antsy. He didn’t want to be there. He wanted
- 23 to get out and he didn’t –- he didn’t enjoy sitting –- having
- 24 me talk about his job with him and where he was at.
- 25 Q. What he was telling you, did it make sense?
- -1312-
- 1 A. No, it didn’t make sense. Yeah, the story from the
- 2 beginning didn’t make sense. The fact that he didn’t know a
- 3 doctor –- who the doctor was or what was going to be done, what
- 4 medical treatment was next made absolutely not sense. I deal
- 5 with these employee issues day in and day out. So the protocol
- 6 that I would have expected to see from one of my employees who
- 7 had been injured –- that’s not something that Angel displayed.
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