Ryan Ferguson attorney seeking $1.3 million more in historic lawsuit judgment

Lucas Geisler

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)– An attorney for Ryan Ferguson hopes to get $1 million more in his eight-figure lawsuit against an insurance company.

Attorney Michael Berry asked Cole County Judge Cotton Walker on Friday to add at least $1.3 million to the $43.8 million judgment he awarded on Monday. Berry said Walker did not properly add 129 days’ interest on the award.

A Cole County jury sided with Ferguson and six former Columbia police detectives in November in their lawsuit against Travelers Insurance. They claimed Travelers refused to pay out the remaining $2.9 million of a more than $11 million settlement Ferguson and the detectives inked over his reversed murder conviction for sports editor Kent Heitholt’s death in the Columbia Daily Tribune parking lot and decade-long incarceration. The jury awarded him $2.9 million in compensatory damages and $35 million in punitive damages.

Ferguson attorney Kathleen Zellner said the $43.8 million judgment and the money already collected from the settlement make the case the largest court award for a wrongful conviction in U.S. history.

Ryan Ferguson post judgement briefDownload

Walker determined the amount of annual interest added to the award from Jan. 16, 2008, to Feb. 7, 2025. Berry argued that interest should run through June 16’s final award, adding another 129 days, or $1.3 million more. That would also affect how much money Travelers would be expected to pay in post-judgment interest.

Berry also said he planned to challenge Walker’s cap on the total amount of punitive damages awarded. Walker applied a state law to the award that caps punitive damages in a lawsuit at five times the “net judgment,” or compensatory damages and prejudgment interest on compensatory damages.

Walker put that total at $24.2 million, less than the $35 million the jury called for.

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