Missouri Man Awarded Record $38 Million After Insurance Company Refuses to Pay Wrongful Conviction Settlement
by Sam Rutherford
A jury recently awarded a Missouri man $38 million dollars against Travelers Companies, Inc. and its subsidiaries after the insurance company refused to pay an $11 million settlement the man reached with the city of Columbia and six police officers for wrongfully convicting and imprisoning him for murder.
Ryan Ferguson, now 40, was convicted of murdering local journalist Kent Heitholt and spent 10 years in prison. Ferguson was released in 2013 after a court determined that police and prosecutors engaged in misconduct to convict him. Ferguson v. Dormire, 413 S.W.3d 40 (Mo. Ct. App. 2013). Ferguson filed suit against the city, six police officers, and several prosecutors after he was released. The city settled the case in 2017 by agreeing to pay him $11 million dollars.
Travelers, which was the city’s insurance carrier from 2006 to 2011, tried to avoid paying the full settlement amount or the six police officers’ legal fees. Instead, it paid Ferguson $2.75 million and then filed an appeal of the remaining balance, claiming the city’s insurance policy didn’t cover the misconduct in Ferguson’s case. In 2019, a state appellate court rejected this argument and ordered Travelers to pay Ferguson an additional $5.3 million. Ferguson v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 597 S.W.3d 249 (Mo. Ct. App. 2019).
In 2017, Ferguson joined forces with the six officers who had wrongfully imprisoned him and sued Travelers, alleging in part that the company had “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 [the Law Enforcement Liability Policy].” The case went to jury trial in October 2024, and in early November, the jury returned its record-setting award.
Ferguson will receive 86 percent of the $38 million dollar judgment while the six officers will receive two percent each. The officers are Jeffery Nichols, William Westbrook, John Short, Lloyd Simmons, Latisha Burns, and Bryan Liebhart.
Kathleen Zellner, one of Ferguson’s attorneys, said in a text message shortly after the verdict that Ferguson “has now won ($)48 million $905,000 as a result of his wrongful conviction. This is the highest verdict in the United States for 10 years of imprisonment.” This amount reflects the prior judgments plus the recent jury verdict.
“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,” said Zellner.
Sources: abc17news.com, dailymail.co.uk, nypost.com
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