$44 Million Verdict for Man Left Quadriplegic by Baltimore Police Officer
After trial: The $44 million judgment stood. Baltimore declined to indemnify the officer, whom the jury found acted with malice, and the case later settled for $1 million, as former City Solicitor George Nilson confirmed in 2018.
Won by Murphy Falcon & Murphy.
William H. Murphy Jr. won a $44 million Baltimore jury verdict after a police officer threw handcuffed Albert Mosley headfirst into a concrete jail cell wall, rendering him a permanent quadriplegic; the city refused to pay and the case ultimately settled for $1 million.
What happened
On June 25, 2003, Albert Mosley was brought to a Western District Baltimore police station on a probation violation. He was handcuffed, intoxicated, and loud. According to witness accounts and testimony at trial, Officer Bryan Kershaw lost patience with Mosley's taunts, yanked him to his feet, and threw him headfirst into the concrete wall of his holding cell. Mosley collapsed and lay bleeding on the floor. Officers ignored pleas for medical attention for roughly 45 minutes before help arrived.
The injury to Mosley's neck was catastrophic. He was left a permanent quadriplegic, dependent on a wheelchair and round-the-clock care at a private medical facility in Towson. He was 55 years old at the time of trial.
William H. 'Billy' Murphy Jr. brought the civil rights and battery claims before a Baltimore City Circuit Court jury. Murphy presented evidence that Kershaw used grossly disproportionate force against a restrained man who posed no physical threat, and that officers then compounded the harm by withholding timely medical care. Kershaw testified that he shoved Mosley only 'in a controlled manner' and immediately summoned help, a version the jury rejected.
On August 1, 2006, the jury returned a verdict of $44 million. The award was one of the largest police brutality verdicts in Maryland history at that point.
The city refused to pay. Baltimore's law department, citing the legal principle that the city is not obligated to indemnify officers whom a jury finds acted with malice, declined to write the check. Murphy publicly condemned the position: 'What gives them the right to harm people and not compensate them for that?' He called the city's stance a 'pittance' of what the jury believed Mosley deserved.
Pressure mounted when Mosley's legal team began pursuing Kershaw's personal wages and assets to satisfy the judgment. At that point, city officials intervened on humanitarian grounds to protect the officer. The case settled for $1 million, confirmed by former City Solicitor George Nilson in a 2018 interview. Mosley received a fraction of what the jury awarded, but the verdict itself forced a years-long public reckoning over how Baltimore handled police brutality payouts.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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