The Second Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a jury award of $445,000 for a man who was brutalized by three members of the NYPD. It is an important decision for several reasons, not the least of which was the Court’s recognition that deliberate attempts by officers to cover up and hide their misconduct can be taken into account by jurors in determining how much they should award in punitive damages.
Andrew Yurkiw, Amber Lagrandier, and Joseph Solomito assaulted our client, Thomas Jennings, breaking his nose in multiple places. The case was first tried in Brooklyn federal court in June 2018. That jury, outraged by these officers’ conduct and their attempt to lie their way past the trial, awarded plaintiff $500,000 in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. The Court ruled that those amounts were too high and gave plaintiff the option of accepting $255,000 as a final number (of which $140,000 was for punitive damages) or having a second jury decide how much he should receive.
We elected to retry the case and proceeded to trial in April 2019. This time the jury awarded a total amount of $445,000, including $355,000 in punitive damages. This time the court left the award alone. The three officers appealed, arguing that the Court should have again reduced the punitive damages to $140,000. The defendants argued their brutality was nothing but “a few minutes of violence” against Jennings. The appellate court rejected that argument, finding that “’a few minutes of violence’ is not a trivial matter.” The Court also pointed out that the defendants’ “excessive force was made the more reprehensible because none of the officers intervened to stop the attack, as each was required to do” and that “[t]he reprehensible nature of the officers’ conduct is underscored by the elaborate steps they took to cover up their misconduct. The jury heard and was entitled to consider a record that included falsified charging documents, false accounts of the beating, faked or exaggerated injury, and perjured trial testimony.”
Jennings was represented throughout the case by Amy Rameau. Michael Lumer tried both cases with Ms. Rameau and participated on the appeal with appellate counsel Scott Korenbaum.
Tag: Joseph Solomito
$3 Million Excessive Force Verdict
On April 23, 2014, Thomas Jennings was brutalized and subjected to excessive force by several members of the NYPD. He subsequently sued. On June 1, 2018, following a three-day trial and five hours of deliberation, a jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York returned a verdict for Mr. Jennings for $3,000,000, finding that that three NYPD officers had deliberately used excessive force against him. Michael Lumer was c0-counsel for Mr. Jennings at trial, along with his long-time attorney Amy Rameau, Esq. The jury found that PO Andrew Yurkiw had, without justification, struck plaintiff in the face several times, and that his colleagues, POs Amber Lagrandier and Joseph Solomito had also beaten and struck plaintiff after Yurkiw’s blows had knocked Mr. Jennings to the ground. Plaintiff suffered a bi-lateral nasal fracture with a displaced septum, and other injuries to his face, head, and body. The verdict was reported recently in the Daily News.
In reaching this verdict, the jury expressly rejected the officers’ testimony that plaintiff had swung at Yurkiw, attempted to flee, or resist arrest. Rather, the jury found that the officers lied repeatedly and collectively about how and why they used force against Thomas Jennings, and went so far as to deny that he was actually hurt, even though his medical records fully documented his injuries. In response, the jury awarded Mr. Jennings $500,000 in compensatory damages, and assessed punitive damages against Yurkiw, Lagrandier, and Solomito, for $1,000,000, $750,000, and $750,000, respectively.
We are grateful that the jury recognized the officers’ initial misconduct, and that these officers had lied and covered up their actions by falsifying claims against Mr. Jennings. Perhaps more importantly, the jury made that the officers’ refusal to admit to their misconduct and their years of lying and fabricating were unacceptable. It is hopefully a message that will be heard at One Police Plaza.