City Must Pay Only $100,000 Of $2.75M Wrongful Death Award In Traffic Stop Case

(August 5, 2024, 12:58 PM EDT) -- BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — An Alabama federal judge on Aug. 2 granted in part a motion of an Alabama city and a city police officer for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial or remittitur of a $4.45 million jury award stemming from a vehicle chase that culminated in the police officer shooting into the plaintiffs’ vehicle after it crashed, holding that the officer was entitled to qualified immunity on excessive force claims and that, by law, the municipality could not be liable for more than $100,000 of the $2.75M in wrongful death punitive damages awarded against the city and the officer....