A jury ordered Travelers Insurance company to pay nearly $38 million in damages after it failed to pay Ryan Ferguson for a previous wrongful conviction lawsuit. Ferguson’s legal team provided media with a copy of the jury verdict ruling in favor of the plaintiff and six former officers with the Columbia Police Department. The jury award was the result of Traveler’s Insurance failing to pay money owed from the lawsuit. The jury assessed the plaintiff’s damages at $2.9 million and an additional $35 million in punitive damages.
Ferguson declined comment when contacted by media however an attorney who represents Ferguson released this statement: “This verdict will have a widespread effect on wrongful conviction cases across the country when the insurer refuses to participate in the settlement negotiations and refuses to pay their share of the verdict immediately. Justice was finally served for our client. The jury heard us loud and clear.”
According to Ferguson’s attorney, their client will get 86% of the verdict while the six police officers will get a total of 14% or 2% apiece. The six officers worked the initial case but were added as plaintiffs against Travelers Insurance for denying the officers needed coverage in civil rights violation cases, according to Zellner. Because Travelers declined coverage for the incident, the officers would have gone bankrupt if they were forced to pay the settlement.
“The officers were put in a no-win situation and Ryan was put in a situation where he could not collect his verdict without being able to sue Travelers on behalf of the officers,” Zellner told ABC 17 News in a text message. “The client has now won $48,900,000.00 as a result of his wrongful conviction. This is the highest verdict in the United States for 10 years of imprisonment.”
Ferguson spent a decade behind bars for the murder of a then the Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor. State appeals court judges threw out his conviction in 2013 after they found prosecutors had withheld evidence from the defense. The officers listed in the lawsuit were also accused of manipulating evidence to get a conviction but have denied any wrongdoing. A federal court awarded the plaintiff more than $11 million in a settlement after he sued the City of Columbia, police, and prosecutors in 2017.
Ferguson was forced to sue that year to collect the money from Travelers Insurance and Count 2 of the lawsuit alleges Travelers Insurance “intentionally disregarded the financial interest of the officers in the hopes of escaping the obligation to fund the Officers’ defense and to escape the obligation to indemnify them for a significant financial obligation covered by L.E.L [Law Enforcement Liability Policy].”
St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, doing business as Travelers insurance covered the City of Columbia for law enforcement liability from 2006-11 for up to $2 million per year. The company was ordered to pay $1 million for each year Ferguson was in prison under their policy. An additional $354,000 was awarded for Ryans legal fees. The city and its current insurer paid out $2.75 million of the award.
Travelers filed an appeal in 2019, alleging that the events described in the lawsuit occurred before the city’s insurance policy kicked in. Missouri Court of Appeals Western District judges sided with the plaintiff, awarding him $5.3 million, saying that the policy covered the imprisonment of the plaintiff. Both sides went to a jury trial last month in Cole County to try the plaintiff and the officers’ claim against Travelers. This was a very complex legal matter that required both expertise and experience.
We represent people who are injured because of the careless and reckless acts of others. At the end of the day your case can only be settled one time and you need to know all of the facts beforehand. The reason that insurance companies have paid our clients in excess of $130,000,000.00 is that we get the facts and are not intimidated at the prospect of going to trial when insurance companies fail to offer full compensation. We help with serious injuries that require serious representation. We are the Law Offices of Guenard & Bozarth, LLP. Our attorneys have more than 60 years of experience specializing in only representing injured people. Call GB Legal 24/7/365 at 888-809-1075 or visit www.gblegal.com
