$46 Million Paid to Exonerated Missouri Prisoner Wrongfully Incarcerated for 10 Years
On November 1, 2024, a Missouri jury returned a $37.9 million verdict against Travelers Indemnity Company in favor of an exonerated state prisoner after the insurance giant balked at covering an $11 million settlement of his wrongful incarceration suit.
Ryan Ferguson, now 40, was in high school in 2001 when he and classmate Charles Erickson were accused of drunkenly beating to death a newspaper sports editor, Kent Heithold, in the parking lot of the Columbia Daily Herald. Erickson made a confession he later claimed was coerced and spent 20 years in prison. That recanted confession also secured a sentence for Ferguson, who served 10 years in prison before his conviction was vacated and he was released in November 2013.
Ferguson then filed a federal civil rights suit against the city of Columbia, Boone County and several employees. They settled in 2017 for $10 million, plus $150,000 for legal expenses incurred during Ferguson’s trial on the bogus charges, as well as $854,000 in costs and fees for his counsel in the latter suit, Illinois-based attorney Kathleen T. Zellner. See: Ferguson v. Short, USDC (W.D. Mo.), Case No. 2:14-cv-04062.
Columbia paid $500,000 and its current insurer, Clarendon Insurance, ponied up another $2.25 million of the award. But Travelers refused to cover the rest of the payout, arguing that it wasn’t liable because it wasn’t the city’s insurer until 2010—five years after Ferguson’s wrongful conviction. Zellner then filed another suit against Travelers, arguing that it couldn’t skate from liability because it had merged in 2006 with the city’s former insurer, St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co.
Missouri’s 19th Judicial District Circuit Court for Cole County agreed and issued a partial ruling against Travelers in August 2018, awarding Ferguson $5 million—$1 million for each of the five years from 2006 to 2010 that he was wrongfully incarcerated. Additionally, the firm was ordered to cover the $854,000 legal award, less a $500,000 offset from the city’s self-insurance payment, for a total of $5.35 million. Travelers appealed that verdict but lost at the state Court of Appeals in 2019. See: Ferguson v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 597 S.W.3d 249 (Mo. Ct. App. 2019).
That still left unpaid from the settlement another $2.9 million apportioned to the fault of the six police officers, whom Travelers also refused to indemnify. The cops joined Ferguson in making a bad-faith claim against the firm, and a Cole County Circuit Court jury found Travelers liable for the full $2.9 million payout plus another $35 million in punitive damages, of which Ferguson will collect 86% and the six cops will split the remaining 14%.
Zellner called this latest verdict “hugely significant for insurance companies that decline coverage to police officers on civil rights violations,” adding that she expects it “to get a lot of attention from insurance companies who offer law enforcement liability insurance.” Joining her in representing plaintiffs in their suit was Jefferson City attorney Michael G. Berry. See: Ferguson v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., Mo. Circ., 19th Jud. Dist. (Cole Cty.), Case No. 17BA-CV03169.
Additional sources: Columbia Missourian, KMIZ