Insurance Attorneys file answer to Collins lawsuit
Insurance attorneys in the Billy Collins lawsuit have moved a lawsuit filed by the estate Collins who died after being arrested in Louisa in 2015, to federal court and asked that the complaint be dismissed. Collins death was recorded by a body cam worn by one of the officers involved in the case.
The Lazer has published the video.
The lawsuit was filed on May 20th, 2016, against the following people and agencies for “ALLEGEDLY CAUSING THE DEATH OF BILLY COLLINS: officer Stephen Wilburn, officer Jordan Miller, Chief Greg Fugitt, Sheriff Garrett Roberts, deputy Mason Keefer, deputy Mack Wilhite, The Louisa Police Dept., The City of Louisa, and The Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office, were all named in the complaint.
The suit was initially filed in Lawrence Circuit Court, but attorneys for the defendant removed the case to U.S. District Court in Ashland, which they say has proper jurisdiction to hear the allegations. The attorneys Robert T. Watson and Chris J. Gadanksy of Louisville, and Jonathan C. Shaw of Paintsville, also filed a motion to dismiss the complaint or, in the alternative, for summary judgment.
Lawrence County Attorney Mike Hogan said the county and city have separated in the case and will use different attorneys. He said he will advise the fiscal court to ask the insurance attorneys to settle the case before going to court. The county has $3 million in aggregate insurance with a $1 million limit per incident, he said. Louisa City Attorney Eldred “Bud” Adams refused to comment on how much insurance the city has.
“The facts of this matter as alleged in the complaint demonstrate that claims against all official capacity defendants should be dismissed as a matter of law; state law claims against Lawrence County and Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office are barred by sovereign/governmental immunity and claims based upon vicarious and/or respondent superior liability fail as a matter of law,” the request for dismissal said. The request also argues that the claims against the individual defendants in their official capacity are redundant and should be dismissed.
“State law claims against defendants in their official capacity are barred by the doctrine of official immunity,” the request for dismissal said. “Official immunity is immunity from tort liability afforded to public officers and employees for acts performed in the exercise of their discretionary functions. It rests not on the status or title of the officer or employee, but on the function performed.”
The attorneys say Kentucky’s law of sovereign immunity “bars state-law actions against county governments,” saying “Kentucky subdivisions are not liable for the tortious performance of governmental function, nor vicariously liable for the negligence of their employees,”
The suit said that while Collins was in the custody of the Louisa Police Department, city officers and Sheriff’s deputies’ “use of force against the decedent was willful, negligent, grossly negligent, excessive and caused his death” and was “so blatantly a violation of decedent’s rights under both the United States Constitution and Kentucky Constitution such that punitive damages are warranted.”
“The Defendants’ tortious conduct was a result of customs and practices, either written or unwritten, that were systematically applied to persons situated such as the decendent and was so applied to the decedent in this case,” the suit says. “The implementation of these customs and practices whether written or unwritten by the Defendants named herein were a proximate cause of decedent’s death.”
Billy Joseph “Joe” Collins is the administrator of his father’s estate. The estate is represented by Ashland Attorney Michael Curtis.
A lawsuit or its answer spell out only one side of a case.
