Florida DOC Rebuked for Seizing Prisoner’s Excessive Force Settlement to Cover Incarceration Liens
by Chuck Sharman
On July 30, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida refused to let the state Department of Corrections (DOC) seize the settlement it paid a prisoner—for his excessive force claim against guards who nearly blinded him—in order to satisfy cost-of-incarceration liens placed on his trust account. While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has not yet addressed the question directly, the district court was persuaded to agree with the Second and Eighth Circuits “that the State cannot simply repay itself for the cost of incarcerating a section 1983 plaintiff from the same funds it has paid to that inmate in a section 1983 action.”
Jason Baez, now 51, was convicted in 2006 of fatally beating housemate Robert Fugueroa the year before and then torching the Pasco County mobile home that they shared, with the 55-yeaar-old’s corpse inside. Incarcerated by the DOC, Baez was housed at Santa Rosa Correctional Institution in June 2019 when he accused a group of five guards of using excessive force against him in an assault that left him almost blind. He also accused two staffers with Centurion, the DOC’s private healthcare contractor, of failing to intervene to treat his injuries.
The Centurion staffers moved to dismiss the claims against them. But the district court adopted the recommendation of a magistrate and denied the motion on January 4, 2021. See: Baez v. Daniels, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 198 (N.D. Fla.). Centurion then settled its share of the claims for over $300,000, and the DOC paid another $60,000 to settle its share in 2022. Both payouts included costs and fees for his attorneys from Kuhn Davis Law in Miami and Disability Rights Florida. See: Baez v. Off. Daniels, USDC (N.D. Fla.), Case No. 3:20-cv-05591.
Almost two years later, in July 2024, the DOC filed a motion in state court under Fla. Stat. § 960.293 to charge Baez $50 per day for the cost of his 30-year incarceration. The motion was granted the same day, and a lien was entered against the prisoner for $547,850. The DOC placed a hold on Baez’s inmate trust account, transferring the entire $320,490.64 balance in February 2025 into the state’s general fund—including the remainder of his settlement payouts.
With the aid of attorneys from the Florida Justice Institute and the Southern Poverty Law Center, Baez filed suit against the DOC and Director Ricky Dixon in state circuit court in August 2025, arguing that his due process rights were violated when his funds were seized without notice or a chance to contest the seizure. The state circuit court disagreed and granted Defendants summary judgment, and the state Second District Court of Appeal affirmed on June 5, 2026. See: Baez v. Dep’t of Corr., Fla. Ct. of App. (2d Dist.), Case No. 2D2025-0423.
Meanwhile, Baez had also turned to the federal district court, where he argued that application of § 960.293 to seize his § 1983 settlement funds unconstitutionally conflicted with federal law. The parties agreed that the issue at stake was conflict pre-emption, and both moved for summary judgement. The district court then ruled that the state law could not be applied to the prisoner without violating Congress’ two-fold intent in passing the federal statute—(1) “to compensate victims” and (2) “to deter future deprivations of federal constitutional rights.”
Reviewing the determinations of the Second and Eighth circuits, the district court recognized “the basic principle” that “a state’s recovery of state funds paid to a section 1983 plaintiff via ‘bookkeeping maneuvers’—specifically by imposing a cost-of-incarceration lien—sharply undermines [both of these] goals.”
Defendants attempted to draw a distinction between a jury verdict, like those in the Second and Eighth Circuit cases, and a settlement like Baez’s. But the district court wasn’t buying it. Such a distinction would only encourage “perverse outcomes,” like “discouraging incarcerated people from accepting settlement offers in Section 1983 actions.”
Accordingly, Baez’s summary judgement motion was granted, and the DOC’s motion was denied. See: Baez v. Dixon, USDC (N.D. Fla.), Case No. 4:25-cv-00216.
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