Opinion ID: 482900
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Cases Involving Injury Caused by Police

Text: 44 Cases in which an individual is injured by police are difficult to compare because although the cases share a common class of defendants, the claims and damages tend to be very fact-specific. It is useful to examine a few of these cases, however, to gain some perspective on the varying amounts that courts and juries have awarded to plaintiffs. 45 In Bohannon v. Pegelow, 652 F.2d 729 (7th Cir.1981), the plaintiff was arrested and falsely charged with pandering. The charges were eventually dismissed, and the plaintiff sued claiming that he was arrested without probable cause and in violation of his civil rights. The jury awarded the plaintiff $10,000 compensatory and $15,000 punitive damages. On appeal, this court held that the damages were not excessive in light of the facts that plaintiff had spent sixteen hours in jail, and had spent months thereafter contesting the false charge. Plaintiff also suffered embarrassment from the stigma of the charge. We upheld the jury's award of $25,000 in damages. 46 Plaintiffs' awards have not always been upheld on appeal, however. In Taliferro v. Augle, 757 F.2d 157 (7th Cir.1985), we reduced a $72,000 award to $50,000. The problem was lack of proof. The plaintiff claimed that he was arrested for no reason at all, and that police had caused him serious injuries that included destroying his dental plate and knocking out many of his real teeth. Id. at 159. At the close of testimony, plaintiff had asked for $25,000 for physical injury, $100,000 for emotional distress, and $50,000 for lost property (a manuscript). There was no evidence of lost earnings. The court noted that 47 [t]he only effort at proof here, besides the proof of $35 in out-of-pocket medical expenses, was Taliferro's testimony that he was distraught and humiliated by his mistreatment at the hands of the police, as well as suffering physical pain.... $47,000 is not a reasonable estimate of such an intangible loss when no effort at all is made to estimate an objective basis for quantifying the loss. We consider $25,000 the highest compensatory damages that can be justified on this record.... 48 Id. at 162. The court did not disturb the jury's award of $25,000 in punitive damages to be split between the two police officer defendants. Police brutality is an exceedingly serious matter and $12,500 is not excessive punishment of a policeman who commits it. Id. 49 In Rakovich v. Wade, a case from the Eastern District of Wisconsin, the jury awarded the plaintiff $50,000 compensatory and $90,000 punitive damages from several defendants. 602 F.Supp. 1444 (E.D.Wis.1985). Plaintiff had sued two police officers and their superior for actions they took against plaintiff in retaliation for plaintiff's active opposition to local officials in Greenfield, Wisconsin. The plaintiff proved that the defendants photographed him, recorded his conversations, and required that the plaintiff be summoned before the Milwaukee County District Attorney and charged with violating the criminal code although they knew that there was no basis for the charges. The defendants disclosed to the media that plaintiff was the subject of criminal investigation and had been ordered to appear before the D.A., thus damaging plaintiff's reputation. The defendants moved to strike the compensatory damages award on the ground that it was speculative. The court denied the motion, noting that emotional harm and injury to reputation are compensable in actions under the Civil Rights Act of 1866.... Evidence of financial loss or medical evidence of mental impairment are not essential. 602 F.Supp. at 1448. Because the plaintiff testified at trial to the humiliation and damage to his reputation that he had suffered, the court found that the jury had had an adequate basis on which to determine a fair award. 50 In another district court case, Spears v. Conlisk, 440 F.Supp. 490 (N.D.Ill.1977), a plaintiff sued a police officer for unlawful arrest and for shooting the plaintiff. The court awarded the plaintiff $100,000 from the defendant who actually shot plaintiff, and $100,000 jointly and severally from the other defendant police officers who worked together to cover up the incident. The court found that the award was justified because the plaintiff endured pain from his injury for almost a year, he was incarcerated for more than eight months awaiting trial on false charges because he was unable to post bond, and the plaintiff lost his job as a result of this confinement. 51 These cases, admittedly, are difficult to compare. We believe, however, that the case at bar is most closely analogous to the Taliferro case, particularly in regard to Bailey's lack of proof of injury. Bailey testified that a pair of his boots, worth approximately $75, were scratched in the scuffle, and that his pants, worth about $20, were torn. Bailey said that his glasses, worth $70, were flattened in the road, but that he had taken them apart and straightened them, and is still wearing the same pair of glasses. Bailey suffered no other economic loss as a result of his arrest. He lost no time at work, other than to attend hearings and depositions, nor did he incur any bills for treatment of his physical or emotional injuries. Bailey attempted to prove his physical injuries through testimony that he was bruised on his hip and back for about two weeks, and that his scratches lingered for three weeks. He attempted to prove emotional injuries with testimony that he seldom shops in Fowler and rarely stops there for coffee on his way to work, that he dwelt in conversation on his embarrassment for six weeks, that he left town for a while, and that he has had some difficulty sleeping. As in Taliferro, we find that $55,000 is not a reasonable estimate of such an intangible loss when no effort at all is made to estimate an objective basis for quantifying the loss. Taliferro, 757 F.2d at 162. 52 In addition to challenging the jury's award as being excessive, Andrews challenged the components of the damages award. In his Reply Brief, Andrews challenged Jury Instruction 31A 4 as giving the jury an improper measure by which to assess Bailey's damages. Andrews supported this challenge with the Supreme Court's opinion in Memphis Community School District v. Stachura, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 2537, 91 L.Ed.2d 249 (1986). Although Andrews objected to Jury Instruction 31A at the instruction conference, he did not renew this objection in his initial brief to this court. As we pointed out in note 1, supra, Stachura was not decided until June 25, 1986, and Andrews thus did not have an opportunity to present his argument on the case until he submitted his Reply Brief. 53 There is some doubt as to whether Andrews's counsel adequately stated the grounds of his objection to the jury instruction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 51; nonetheless we are bound by the Supreme Court's decision in Stachura that damages based on the abstract 'value' or 'importance' of constitutional rights are not a permissible element of compensatory damages in [Sec. 1983] cases. Id. at 2545. The district court's Instruction 31A, allowing the jury to consider the inherent value of Bailey's constitutional rights, thus gave the jury an impermissible measure by which to assess damages. 54 Judge Sharp, ruling on Andrews's motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict or a new trial, ordered a new trial unless Bailey accepted a remittitur reducing the jury's award of compensatory damages from $55,000 to $15,000 and reducing the punitive damages award from $25,000 to $2,000. Although that order was ultimately set aside because it was entered on an untimely motion, we agree with Judge Sharp that the damages awarded in this case were excessive under any standard. Rather than order a remittitur, however, we find that we must remand the case for a new trial on damages. As in Stachura, the jury verdict specified an amount ($25,000) for punitive damages, but it did not separate out the elements of the compensatory damages award. Therefore, we are unable to determine what portion of the award was based on the improper jury instruction and intended to compensate Bailey for the inherent value of his constitutional rights. The Supreme Court in Stachura found that [w]hen damages instructions are faulty and the verdict does not reveal the means by which the jury calculated damages, '[the] error in the charge is difficult, if not impossible, to correct without retrial, in light of the jury's general verdict.'  106 S.Ct. at 2546 (quoting Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 256 n. 12, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 2754 n. 12, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981)). We believe a remittitur in some amount would be clearly compelled, but because we have an inadequate basis to determine an appropriate amount we must leave that to the jury. The circumstances, a citizen being unjustifiably knocked down and kicked on a city street by a policeman, and the resulting injury, were sufficient, as determined by the jury, to establish liability, but the circumstances and the injury are not sufficient to sustain the jury's excessive damage award. 55 The judgment on liability is affirmed, but we remand the case for a new trial on damages. Circuit Rule 18 will not apply. 56 AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART.