On March 4, 2025, the City and County of San Francisco approved an $825,000 settlement with Vincent Bell, a one-legged city jail detainee who sued over an outrageous 2018 incident in which a guard supervisor forced him to hop until he collapsed.

It was the second payout to Bell that San Francisco leaders have approved; another for $500,000 in 2024 settled an excessive-force suit he brought against an earlier group of guards who also made him hop on his only leg in 2013 during his long detention awaiting trial on charges that he supplied the gun used in a 2012 murder.

As PLN reported, and the federal court for the Northern District of California confirmed, jail surveillance video gave the lie to claims by guard supervisor Sgt. Yvette Williams that the amputee threatened her and made her feel “unsafe” before barricading himself in his cell—reasons she cited for calling in Special Operations Response Team guards, who made Bell hop over 21 yards on his only leg until he collapsed. After he fell, they tortured him and left him naked in a safety cell for 24 hours. Those claims by Bell were tried in November 2022, after which the jury awarded $504,000; an additional award of $564,152.24 in legal costs and fees followed in July 2023. [See: PLN, Oct. 2023, p.46.]

San Francisco appealed the verdict. But on July 18, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the jury’s finding that Defendants were liable for Williams’ violation of Bell’s Fourteenth Amendment protection from use of excessive force, as well as violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. ch. 126 § 12101 et seq., and the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.

The jury made no damages award for these violations, finding Bell did not show that he sustained sufficient physical or emotional injuries. But $504,000 was awarded upon a finding that San Francisco failed to properly train its jailers on how to perform cell extractions on detainees with disabilities, and that an exception was valid to governmental immunity from suit, as held in Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Svcs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

The appellate Court reviewed the training program and determined that Bell’s Monell claim failed because he hadn’t shown that it was so inadequate as to demonstrate deliberate indifference to a known risk, the requirement specified in Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011). The Court implied it was not San Francisco’s fault that its jailers failed to “connect the dots” after being provided more-than-adequate training.

But the Court said that Bell was still entitled to a damages award because his physical injuries satisfied the “more than de minimus” requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. §1997e(e). San Francisco also sought remittitur, claiming that $504,000 was “grossly excessive.” The Court, however, observed that a “jury’s verdict must be upheld unless the amount is ‘grossly excessive or monstrous, clearly not supported by the evidence, or based on speculation or guesswork,’” as laid out in Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd. v. City of Monterey, 95 F.3d 1422 (9th Cir. 1996).

For that, the Court conducted a comparative analysis of Bell’s damages award with other cases in the Ninth Circuit and concluded that $504,000 was grossly excessive in light of his injuries. Bell had failed to present evidence of lasting damage demonstrating that he “was deserving of such an exceptional award,” the Court said, adding that it was “difficult to conceive that Bell’s emotional distress and pain and suffering could be valued reasonably anywhere above $150,000.”

Accordingly, the case was remanded to the district court to “give Bell the option of choosing between a new trial on damages on his ADA and Rehabilitation Act claims or a remittitur in an amount to be determined by the district court consistent with this opinion.” See: Bell v. Williams, 108 F.4th 809 (9th Cir. 2024).

However, Defendants opted to cut their losses. They were still on the hook for over $562,000 in legal fees and costs (plus interest), and the Ninth Circuit had estimated that Bell’s claim was worth another $150,000 at least. The parties reached their settlement agreement, and the Board of Supervisors passed the approving ordinance. Bell was represented in his suit by attorneys with Siegel, Yee, Brunner & Mehta in Oakland and Andrew C. Kim in Belmont. See: Bell v. Williams, USDC (N.D. Cal.), Case No. 3:18-cv-01245.

In Bell’s other suit, filed pro se five years earlier, he accused several jailers of beating him up in September 2013 and then—you guessed it—forcing him to hop on his only leg about 100 feet to a safety cell, where they beat him up again. The suit was stayed in May 2017 during criminal proceedings. He then endured another forced hop from Williams and after winning a jury award, returned to reopen this suit in November 2022.

The district court scheduled a trial for April 2024, but the parties reached their settlement agreement first. The Board of Supervisors adopted an ordinance on July 9, 2024, paying Bell $500,000, inclusive of costs and fees for his attorneys with Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP in San Francisco. See: Bell v.Lee, USDC (N.D. Cal.), Case No. 3:13-cv-05820.  

Additional source: 48 Hills

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login