In what is becoming a regular occurrence Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Swan Yerger rendered a $375,000 bench verdict against the City of Jackson in a case involving a police pursuit. Here is the Clarion-Ledger article on the verdict. This is the fourth similar verdict in the last year.
The article states:
The latest ruling comes from a lawsuit filed by a former Richland police officer over injuries he suffered in 2004 when a car being chased by Jackson police struck his personal vehicle.
Thornton, 44, alleged he was forced to resign from the Richland Police Department, where he had been a patrol sergeant, because of the injuries, including a fractured vertebra, a broken foot, ankle trauma, a concussion, lacerated facial muscles and other facial lacerations that left extensive scarring of his face and forehead.
The court found reckless conduct by the Police:
The court finds, from a preponderance of the evidence, that the proximate cause of the subject accident and the plaintiff’s injuries, … resulted from the aforesaid reckless conduct of the Jackson Police Department officers,” Yerger wrote.
The City wants the court to apportion fault to the other two parties involved:
City Attorney Pieter Teeuwissen said his office filed a motion Friday in response, asking Yerger to “follow his statutory obligation and apportion the liability to the two other parties.”
Those parties are Robertson and another driver, Keiwana Lewis, who pulled her car in front of Robertson’s before he crashed into Thornton.
“It’s not fair to place all the liability on the city when evidence shows clearly at least those two parties bear responsibility, if not all of it,” Teeuwissen said. “The cause of the accident was the individual who would not yield to the police and Ms. Lewis, who was changing her CD, not paying attention and pulled in front of that individual.”
Teeuwissen seems to have a point about apportionment of fault to other individuals.
It will be interesting to see what happens to these cases if and when they reach the appellate court. Is Jackson the only place where police pursuit accidents occur? Why is it always the police department’s fault? I don’t know the answers to these questions.