City attorneys agreed to a $34,000 settlement with John Davi, an
epileptic who was Tased and arrested in November 2004 after
grappling with police.
Gilroy – City attorneys agreed to a $34,000 settlement with John Davi, an epileptic who was Tased and arrested in November 2004 after grappling with police.
Davi filed suit against the city in December 2005, claiming that Gilroy police officer Nestor Quiñones wrongfully Tased him during the combative period that typically follows a seizure. Worse, said attorney Anthony Boskovich, Quiñones falsely charged him with being under the influence of a controlled substance and resisting arrest, omitting a key fact from his report: Davi had a seizure.
Davi spent four months contesting the charge in criminal court before the public defender retrieved his medical records and drug test, which was clean for all substances except for benzodiazepine, administered at the hospital. The district attorney dropped the charges.
City attorney Tim Schmal countered that Quiñones’ decisions were sound, based on the evidence he had at the scene. Coworkers at Bert E. Jessup Trucking, where Davi worked as a driver, told police that Davi had been smoking marijuana near the dock, Quiñones wrote in his report; Davi’s wife, who was contacted by telephone, told firefighters that Davi used methadone to control his heroin addiction. As firefighters held him down on the Jessup loading dock, Davi thrashed underneath them, yelling ‘Help me!’ and ‘No!’ Quiñones wrote.
Prior to November 2005, Davi had no history of seizures. Since the incident, he suffered a second seizure, forcing him to quit his job as a driver.
Schmal said that the $34,000 settlement fell far short of the cost of taking the suit to trial.
“The fact that this case settled at such a nominal, less-than-cost-of-defense amount underscores the fact that Mr. Davi’s own attorneys recognized the fact that the most probable result at jury trial … would have been a complete vindication of the city, Officer Quiñones, and the firefighters,” Schmal wrote in an e-mail.
Boskovich was out of town and could not be reached for comment.
In the settlement, both parties agreed that “this agreement is a compromise and shall not be construed as an admission of liability,” according to a segment of the settlement supplied by Schmal.
Davi’s case isn’t unique: In the past two years, the Epilepsy Foundation has heard of at least 50 cases of apparent improper arrests of persons undergoing seizure, said Gary Gross, director of the foundation’s legal defense fund. In 2006, Boulder County paid $90,000 to an epileptic who was tased six times, then charged with resisting arrest and driving with a suspended license, after he crashed his car during a seizure.
“A desired outcome in cases like this is to ensure that first responders are appropriately trained in the future on seizure recognition and response,” said Gross.
Gross said a model settlement was reached in Parks v. Darby Borough, a case filed jointly by the Epilepsy Foundation and a Pennsylvania man who claimed to suffer nerve damage after being improperly restrained by police during a seizure. Pennsylvania police recruits are now required to view the Epilepsy Foundation’s training video designed for law enforcement, and all police take a three-hour course on seizure identification and response.
Gilroy police learn about seizures during basic first-aid training, but were not using the Epilepsy Foundation’s curriculum on identifying and responding to seizure in March, when last questioned on the topic.
