Shooting victim to face steep battle for $23M
After being paralyzed by deputy, man must surmount approvals and appeals
Dontrell Stephens will face an uphill battle to get all of the $23.1 million a federal jury awarded him, his court-appointed guardian said Thursday.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office is planning to appeal the case, which accuses Deputy Adams Lin of using excessive force. The deputy shot the unarmed 22-year-old Stephens four times. His wounds left him paralyzed.
Even if Stephens prevails, it typically takes years for large judgments against law enforcement to be paid. The Florida Legislature must approve any damages paid by local governments above the state’s cap of $200,000 through a process known as a claims bill.
“Ifwe can get a claims bill and get it approved, we can get him the medical attention and get him the equipment he needs,” said Evett Simmons, who serves as Stephens’ court-appointed guardian. “Right now, he is
in the darkness before he can see some light.”
The shooting left Stephens with $1.5 million in medical bills and nearly $5 million in estimated future medical expenses, Simmons said. He sleeps on a mattress on the floor of a one-bedroom home he shares with his three brothers and has developed severe bed sores, she said.
He feels vindicated, but his medical needs, such as physical therapy, are not being met, Simmons said.
A dashboard-camera video from the Sept. 13, 2013, shooting shows Stephens backing away from Lin when he fired. Stephens held a cellphone but no weapon.
Lin testified he saw a dark object in Stephens’ hand that he thought was a gun, putting him in fear of his life.
In a statement, sheriff’s officials called the verdict “shocking and disappointing.” Lin reasonably mistook the cellphone for a gun and immediately rendered first aid after the shooting, the statement read.
The State Attorney’s Office cleared Lin of any criminal wrongdoing. He has since been promoted to sergeant.
Lin is also partially responsible for paying the damages, and Stephens’ attorney Jack Scarola said he planned to make “every effort to collect every possible penny of every dollar” from his assets.
A recent study, though, that appeared in the New York University Law Review found governments — not police officers — pay nearly 100 percent of damages in-civil-rights violations involving police.
It is extremely difficult to win an excessive-force lawsuit, said Donald Jones, a professor of law at the University of Miami.
“Winning these cases are like winning ground wars in Southeast Asia,” he said. “The evidentiary burden is very high.”
Scarola estimated he spent “hundreds of thousands” of dollars on the case because he felt it needed to be tried. He said he’ll have a hearing later to determine attorney fees.
Lawyers for the Sheriff’s Office will likely file posttrial motions asking for the damages to be lowered or a new trial to be ordered, said Mark Spottswood, a professor of law at Florida State University.
If those motions are denied, lawyers can appeal the case, a process that could take a year or more, Spottswood said.
Jury awards in excess of $20 million in these types of cases are rare but are not unheard of, he said.
“When you have someone who needs a lifetime of medical care going forward, the costs can really add up,” Spottswood said. “It seems initially like a shocking award, but this is someone’s whole life on disability we are talking about plus pain and suffering.”
Florida lawmakers have been reluctant to approve claims bills. In the 2014 legislative session, not a single claims bill was approved.
It took eight years for lawmakers to approve a claims bill for the guardians of Marissa Amora. In 2000, at the age of 2, she suffered irreversible brain damage in an abusive home.
A Palm Beach County jury found the Department of Children and Families negligent and awarded $26 million, but the state Legislature lowered that amount to $18.2 million in 2008 when it finally approved the claims bill.
A $1.8 million claims bill related to the death of a Florida State University football player who died after overexertion during a workout in 2001 has failed in 12 legislative sessions.
State lawmakers need to act quickly to approve claims involving excessive force by police, Simmons said.
“They need to send a message to the sheriff that all lives matter— not just the police officers he is protecting,” she said. “I have great respect and admiration for police officers. But if never punished, they will never change.”
At the local level, Palm Beach County Commissioner Priscilla Taylor says she will continue pushing for a citizen review board to investigate allegations of police misconduct. Such a board would go a long way toward restoring “the public’s trust,” she said.
In September, commissioners decided not to pursue the board because Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw’s objections would render it toothless.
The Sheriff ’s Office agreed to settlements recently in other lawsuits.
The agency agreed to pay $562,000 to the family of Matthew Pollow, a mentally ill 28-year-old fatally shot in West Boca by a deputy, according to a lawyer representing the man’s estate. The Sheriff’s Office also will pay $450,000 to the guardianship of Jeremy Hutton, a then-17-year-old with Down syndrome who was shot by a deputy at a Riviera Beach intersection in 2010.