$6 Million Federal Verdict for Handcuffed Man Beaten by Jailers, Then Left on the Floor for Seven Hours
After trial: Federal Section 1983 verdict, so Tennessee's noneconomic damages cap does not apply. The only Sixth Circuit appeal was interlocutory, filed before the verdict and terminated on January 22, 2024 by stipulation, and no appeal of the verdict or post-trial reduction has been reported.
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.
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