The Alabama Supreme Court ordered an infirmary to pay $1 million to a woman who was taken into custody and charged after an alleged argument with a security officer in 2013.
Jennifer McIntyre had filed a lawsuit against Mobile Infirmary for assault and battery, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, reports al.com.
The case revolved around an incident in which McIntyre and security officer Shawn Scott Poff get into a verbal altercation that ultimately ended with McInyre’s arrest.
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Poff had alleged that McIntyre provoked the confrontation, leading to her arrest.
But surveillance footage from the infirmary released later shows Poff acting aggressively while McIntyre remains calm. The video does not include audio.
After release of the video and McIntyre’s lawsuit, Assistant District Attorney Derrick V. Williams testified that he would’ve dropped McIntyre’s prosecution if he’d known about the video footage.
McIntyre’s attorney successfully argued the video shows McIntyre was wrongly imprisoned and she was awarded $255,000 in compensatory damages and $750,000 in punitive damages by a jury.
The infirmary challenged that verdict, a motion that was eventually denied by Circuit Court Judge Robert Smith. A subsequent appeal brought the case to the Alabama Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s ruling with no opinion.
The Mobile Infirmary declined to comment on the verdict.
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