Bibb County Jury Awards $118 Million Over the Videotaped Beating of a Disabled Man at a Georgia Care Home

In November 2013, a surveillance camera inside the Total Care Personal Care Home in Gordon, Georgia recorded what staff were doing to one of the residents. Joseph "Joey" Cason Jr. is severely developmentally disabled and functions cognitively at the level of a young child. The footage and evidence later presented in court showed he was struck at least 69 times. Employees hit him with a belt, punched him, and slapped him. They taunted him, laughed at him, and allowed other residents of the facility to hit him as well. One employee, Shakie Smith, pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and to exploiting an elderly or disabled person.

Cason's mother, Betty Gill, sued on his behalf, and the litigation produced two separate judgments in two Georgia counties. In January 2016, Judge William Prior in Wilkinson County, where the home was located, entered a final judgment of $64.6 million against companies connected to the home's operation and ten individual employees. That is the $64.6 million figure sometimes cited alongside this case. It is a distinct earlier judgment against a different group of defendants, not a component of the later verdict.

The claims against Total Care Community Living Properties, Total Care Personal Care Home, and the couple who owned and operated the facilities proceeded separately in Bibb County State Court in Macon, under a complaint that included negligent hiring, failure to train employees, invasion of privacy, and premises liability. C. Brian Jarrard of Jarrard Law Group represented Gill and her son alongside Macon attorney Charles E. Cox Jr. Over three days beginning December 19, 2022, a jury heard the damages case. Witnesses testified that the owners had effectively sanctioned the violence, telling staff to do what they had to do as long as Cason did not break the furniture. Expert testimony described a man who can no longer manage social interaction and cries every time he meets someone new, with harm expected to deepen as he ages.

The jury returned $28 million in compensatory damages and $90 million in punitive damages, for a total of $118 million.

A verdict of this size against a small care home operation deserves a candid note on collection. The defendants here are local companies and individuals, not a national chain with layers of insurance. Public reporting does not document how much, if any, of the $118 million verdict or the earlier $64.6 million judgment has actually been recovered, and the outcome of any post-trial challenge has not been independently reported. What the record does establish is the jury's answer to what happened in that facility. The $118 million award remains the largest verdict ever returned in Bibb County State Court.