Jailers Beat a Handcuffed Man on Camera in the Intake Room, Then Left Him on the Floor for Seven Hours. A Federal Jury Awarded $6 Million.
After trial: The $6,000,000 is a federal Section 1983 verdict, so Tennessee's statutory cap on noneconomic damages does not apply to it and no reduction was available on that ground. One Sixth Circuit appeal appears on the record, No. 24-5051, but it was an interlocutory appeal noticed by Deputy Dakota Williams and docketed on January 16, 2024, before the trial verdict; it was terminated on January 22, 2024 on the parties' stipulation under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 42(b), with no mandate issuing. We found no appeal of the verdict itself and no post-trial ruling reducing it.
Won by Garza Law Firm, PLLC.
Nathan Ling was handcuffed in the intake room of the Campbell County jail when officers beat him, breaking bones in his face and an arm, collapsing a lung and causing permanent brain damage. He was left on a concrete floor for about seven hours without treatment. A federal jury found the county liable for failing to train its jailers to intervene.
What happened
In 2019 Nathan Ling, who lived in Michigan, was stopped in Campbell County, Tennessee, driving a stolen vehicle with an outstanding warrant against him. He was taken to the county jail. What happened to him next happened in the intake room, and it happened on camera.
Ling was handcuffed. Officers beat him. He came out of it with multiple fractures to his face, a broken arm, a collapsed lung and traumatic brain damage. He was then left lying on a concrete floor for roughly seven hours before anyone got him medical care.
The suit named the county along with Sheriff's Office employees Deputy Justin Crabtree, Deputy Dakota Williams, Corporal Sean Brown and Correctional Officer Joshua Miller, and it sought $25 million. The theory against Campbell County itself was not simply that its officers used excessive force. It was that the county was deliberately indifferent to what would happen in that room, because it had never trained its jailers on their duty to step in and stop another officer abusing a person in custody. A jailer who watches a handcuffed man being beaten and does nothing is a training failure the employer owns, and that is the failure the jury was asked to find.
The case was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Knoxville before Judge Charles E. Atchley, Jr. in late January 2024. Ling was not in the courtroom for it: his brain damage is permanent, and he could not withstand the stress of the trial.
On Friday, January 26, 2024, the jury found Campbell County liable and awarded $6,000,000.
Ling was represented by Tony Seaton and Thomas J. Smith of the Garza Law Firm, whose Johnson City office Seaton brought into the firm, with Marcos M. Garza appearing for Ling on the appellate side of the case.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.The Tennessee Jury Verdict Reporter (published by The Law Offices of John Day, P.C., independent of counsel in this case), entry published 2-6-24: $6,000,000 civil rights verdict against Campbell County where jailers beat a handcuffed man on tape in the jail's intake room; multiple facial fractures, traumatic brain injury, broken arm and collapsed lung; liability found on deliberate indifference through failure to train jailers to intervene; Judge Atchley; plaintiff's counsel Tony Seaton and Thomas J. Smith of the Garza Law Firm, Johnson City
- 2.WVLT, Jan. 30, 2024: a federal jury found Campbell County at fault and awarded Ling $6 million against a $25 million demand; the 2019 stolen-vehicle stop and outstanding warrant; multiple face fractures, broken arm, traumatic brain damage and collapsed lung; inadequate training of deputies and failure to provide medical attention; Ling's attorneys are from the Garza Law Firm; Ling was absent from trial because of permanent brain damage
- 3.WYMT: the $25 million suit, the beating in the jail's intake room, being left on a concrete floor at least seven hours without medical treatment, and the named officers Deputy Justin Crabtree, Deputy Dakota Williams, Corporal Sean Brown and Correctional Officer Joshua Miller
- 4.Sixth Circuit docket No. 24-5051: civil case docketed January 16, 2024 on a notice filed by appellant Dakota Williams, terminated January 22, 2024; Nathan Ling as plaintiff-appellee represented by Marcos M. Garza, Dakota Williams as defendant-appellant represented by Arthur F. Knight III
Related civil rights verdicts
Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis served as court-appointed co-lead counsel in the multidistrict litigation over Capital One's 2019 data breach, which exposed the personal information of roughly 98 million U.S. customers. The $190 million settlement won final approval in 2022 as one of the largest data breach recoveries in U.S. history.
An Essex County jury awarded $165.97 million against the State of New Jersey and its Division of Youth and Family Services for failing to remove an infant from his home despite his grandmother's abuse report, a verdict reported as the largest in state personal injury history. The trial judge cut it to $102.6 million on remittitur, and in April 2017 the Appellate Division reversed the judgment entirely on qualified immunity grounds under the Tort Claims Act. The family collected nothing from the State.
As court-appointed lead plaintiffs' counsel, Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis negotiated the $117.5 million settlement resolving claims from Yahoo's 2013-2016 data breaches, the largest theft of personal data in history, touching roughly 3 billion accounts worldwide. Judge Lucy Koh approved the fund in 2020 after rejecting an earlier version as inadequate.
On December 14, 2019 Emily Gaines, an 18-year-old Moore High School senior, was driving to take the ACT when Sgt. Kyle Lloyd of the Moore Police Department, off duty and rushing a key to another officer's patrol car for a department event, hit her broadside at 95 to 100 mph in a 50 zone. She died at the scene. On April 1, 2026 a federal jury returned $126,000,000. The court entered $90,000,000 against Lloyd, who is in prison, and cut the $36,000,000 against the City to $125,000 under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act.