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$150,000 Settlement in Suit over Atlanta Prisoner’s Fall-Related Death

$150,000 Settlement in Suit over Atlanta Prisoner's Fall-Related Death

In November 2006, the family of a man who suffered fatal injuries when he fell over a railing on an upper floor of an Atlanta jail settled with the city for $150,000.

Decedent Todd Jones, 37, was arrested and placed in an undisclosed Atlanta jail on misdemeanor charges. While in the jail, according to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by his family, Jones was allowed to move freely throughout the facility. Jones' family contended that he should not have been allowed to wander freely in the jail and that he should have been accompanied by a jailer or locked in a cell, which would have prevented his death.

The City contended that Jones was suicidal and that he committed suicide by jumping over the railing. Moreover, the City asserted, jailers did not breach any policies and could not have anticipated Jones' fall. Jones was unemployed and single at the time of his death.

The family was represented by attorney Laurence Harry Margolis of Atlanta, Georgia. See: Banes v. City of Atlanta, Fulton County Superior Court, Case No. 2005CV100632.

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Related legal case

Banes v. City of Atlanta