According to About Lawsuits, an appeals court has upheld a jury’s decision to award $3 million to a Texas mother who filed a wrongful death lawsuit after her son was tasered 18 times by police before dying. Shirley Nagel filed a lawsuit after her son Joel Don Casey died in 2005 while police were attempting to take him to a mental health institution.
Nagel sued Harris County, alleging police repeatedly stunned Casey while his hands and feet were bound. Nagel received a $3 million award and on June 8 a federal appeals court upheld that verdict.
The lawsuit claimed that the police used excessive force and a taser weapon caused Casey’s death, but a medical examiner claimed Casey died from heart diseases and psychotic delirium from being restrained.
Psychotic delirium is a condition known as excited delirium, which can be caused when an individual is apprehended by police. It only appears as a cause of death when police are involved in restraining an individual, and is commonly cited following the user of tasers.
A human rights group linked 334 deaths to the user of taser guns by police between 2001 and 2009. Amnesty International noted that 90% of those taser deaths examined involved people who were unarmed and did not appear to pose a serious threat.
Wooten Kimbrough, P.A. – Orlando personal injury lawyers