$12.5 Million Verdict for Unarmed CTA Bystander Shot by Chicago Officer
After trial: Reduced by reversal and settlement. The $12.5 million verdict was reversed by the Illinois Appellate Court on December 14, 2009 (920 N.E.2d 572) for prejudicial closing argument, with a new trial on damages ordered.
Won by Schwartz Jambois.
On March 8, 2003, Chicago police officer Alvin Weems shot 23-year-old Michael Pleasance in the head at the 95th Street Red Line station while trying to break up a fight in which Pleasance was only a bystander. CTA surveillance video contradicted the officer's claim that Pleasance lunged for his gun, and the City admitted liability, so the May 2007 trial was on damages alone. A Cook County jury awarded his mother $12.5 million for loss of society. The Illinois Appellate Court reversed in December 2009 over prejudicial closing arguments and a jury instruction, and the City settled for $3 million in March 2011.
What happened
Michael Pleasance was 23 years old on the morning of March 8, 2003. Around 6:30 a.m. he was on the platform of the CTA Red Line station at 95th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway when Chicago police officer Alvin Weems moved in to break up a fight. Pleasance was not part of it. He was standing to the side holding a friend's jacket. Weems, who was trying to arrest someone else, fired his weapon and struck Pleasance in the head. He died at the scene.
The police account that followed said Pleasance had lunged at the officer and struggled for his gun. That account did not survive the station's surveillance video. Once his mother, Pamela Pleasance, sued as special administrator of his estate and a judge ordered the footage released, the recording showed Pleasance standing apart from the fight and appearing to speak with the officer before he was shot. The City of Chicago stopped contesting fault. The Police Department's Office of Professional Standards recommended that Weems be fired; the superintendent instead suspended him for 30 days, and he was later promoted to detective.
Because the City had admitted liability, the trial in the Circuit Court of Cook County in May 2007 was limited to damages. The only question for the jury was the value of what Pamela Pleasance had lost: the love, companionship and affection of her son, which Illinois law calls loss of society. Allen N. Schwartz and Craig P. Mannarino tried the case for the estate. The defense pointed to the hard facts of Michael's life, including a learning disability, an unfinished high school education and a drug possession conviction, and argued that a young man with no wife or children and no job supported a modest award. The jury returned a verdict of $12.5 million, at the time one of the largest police-conduct awards in the city's history. City officials called it excessive and said they would appeal.
On December 14, 2009, the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, reversed the judgment and sent the case back for a new trial. Writing in Pleasance v. City of Chicago, the court held that plaintiff's counsel had made repeated improper and prejudicial comments that had nothing to do with the narrow damages question, that the arguments appealed to the jurors' emotions rather than to the evidence of loss, and that the trial court had erred by instructing the jury on willful and wanton conduct when the evidence did not support that instruction in a damages-only trial. Michael W. Rathsack argued the appeal for the estate alongside Schwartz and Mannarino.
Rather than retry the case, the City settled. On March 4, 2011, the City Council's Finance Committee approved a $3 million payment to the Pleasance family, and the full Council followed. Corporation Counsel Mara Georges told aldermen that letting the case go to a second judgment would likely have cost more. Schwartz, still representing Pamela Pleasance, summed up the case for reporters: Michael was standing there holding his friend's jacket and got shot in the face, and it was on video.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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