Associate Elaine Davenport Receives a Defense Jury Verdict Victory in False Arrest Case

On July 20, 2011, Associate Elaine C. Davenport received a Defense Verdict in a Civil Rights Action brought against two individual Police Officers and the City of Chicago. The three day trial took place in the Northern District of Illinois Federal Court. Plaintiff alleged that the two Police Officers falsely arrested the Plaintiff in the early hours of the morning while Plaintiff was on the Police Station grounds with his friends in an attempt to bail another friend out of the station and recoup an impounded vehicle. Plaintiff alleges he was rightfully on the premises and not trespassing or threatening the officers. Defendant Officers denied the false arrest allegations and instead set forth that the Plaintiff was with a group of friends that threatened and started an altercation with the officers on the police station grounds, resulting in the officers having to call for a 20+ officer ‘back up.’ The Plaintiff and his friends were all arrested. The Jury found for the Plaintiff, however, the jury gave a defense verdict in favor of the Defendant Officers and the City of Chicago by awarding the Plaintiff zero dollars in damages.