$105 Million Verdict in Off-Duty Officer's Murder of Tristin Little Sr.
After trial: The trial court reduced the jury's $105 million verdict to a $26,989,000 judgment against former officer Rodney Price personally. In 2006 Maryland's Court of Special Appeals ruled Price was not acting within the scope of his employment when he killed Little, so Baltimore City had no duty to pay the judgment, and it is largely uncollectable from Price, who is serving a life sentence.
Won by Iamele & Iamele.
A Baltimore City jury returned a $105 million wrongful-death verdict against off-duty Officer Rodney Price, who shot Tristin Little Sr. more than a dozen times with his service weapon in March 2001; the trial court later reduced the award to approximately $26.99 million.
What happened
On the night of March 15, 2001, Tristin D. Little Sr., 28, was outside his apartment building on Cedonia Avenue in Northeast Baltimore when off-duty Baltimore Police Officer Rodney Price confronted him. Price, who had already threatened Little in the weeks before, opened fire with his service weapon, shooting Little more than a dozen times and reportedly stopping to reload before firing again. Little died at the scene. (News accounts and the appellate record differ on the precise count, ranging from seventeen to twenty-one shots.)
Price pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life with all but 50 years suspended. Little's mother, Emma Brown, and his two children filed a civil wrongful-death action in Baltimore Circuit Court in February 2002. The complaint named not only Price but also the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore and the Baltimore Police Department, alleging that Price had been acting within the scope of his employment and that the department bore responsibility for his conduct.
Domenic R. Iamele and Anton Iamele, joined by co-counsel Mitchell D. Treger and A. Dwight Pettit, presented evidence that Price wore department-issued clothing, carried his service weapon, and had a documented history of threatening Little that the family had reported to Internal Affairs before the shooting. The jury agreed with the plaintiffs' theory that Price acted under color of his police authority.
In 2003, the jury returned a verdict of $105 million. The trial court subsequently reduced the award to $26,989,000. The city and police department then sought summary judgment on indemnification, arguing that Price was not acting within the scope of his employment when he committed the murder. The Circuit Court granted that motion, and the family appealed.
The Court of Special Appeals addressed the scope-of-employment question and the interplay between the Local Government Tort Claims Act and a Memorandum of Understanding between the department and the Fraternal Order of Police on indemnification. In Brown v. Mayor, 892 A.2d 1173 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2006), the appellate court affirmed that Price was not acting within the scope of his employment when he killed Little, so the city and police department were not required to indemnify the judgment. The $26,989,000 judgment stood against Price personally.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Brown v. Mayor, 892 A.2d 1173, 167 Md. App. 306: CourtListener (published appellate opinion)
- 2.Brown v. Mayor: vLex case law·Archived copy
- 3.Baltimore Sun: Relatives of city man killed by ex-officer file lawsuit (Feb. 26, 2002)·Archived copy
- 4.Baltimore Sun: Former police officer pleads guilty a second time in 2001 killing (June 8, 2016)·Archived copy
- 5.Baltimore Sun: Officer held in killing of city man (March 17, 2001)·Archived copy
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