Vermont has agreed to pay $175,000 to settle a lawsuit on behalf of a man who was charged with a crime for giving a state trooper the middle finger in 2018, the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday.
The lawsuit was filed in 2021 by the ACLU of Vermont on behalf of Gregory Bombard, of St. Albans. It says Bombard’s First Amendment rights were violated after an unnecessary traffic stop and retaliatory arrest in 2018.
Trooper Jay Riggen stopped Bombard’s vehicle in St. Albans on Feb. 9, 2018, because he believed Bombard had shown him the middle finger, according to the lawsuit. Bombard denied that but says he did curse and display the middle finger once the initial stop was concluded.
In law it is the defense who is supposed to argue the amount is too much, and the plaintiff should ask for as much as possible because at that point it is punitive. Second, while you may not feel threatened by any single interaction with police, this officer was angry and had to have exhibited aggressive behavior. These ingredients have resulted in lots of interactions going south.
Thirdly, let’s put you in this man’s position, we will make one assumption - that you know flipping a cop off is settled law and protected free speech. You’re driving home and you get pulled over. For what? You were just driving and not speeding, what gives? “Licence and registration. Do you know why I pulled you over? Because you flipped me off”. This is not a first level offence. This isn’t being on your phone. This isn’t driving without a seatbelt or speeding. This isn’t driving erratically. This cop just told you he’s going to ticket you because you flipped the bird, but you didn’t. You try to explain you didn’t and he’s going to get mad because you called him a liar. Now you have a citation in hand and you try and NOT swear and actually flip him off. He has deprived your freedom of speech and given you a ticket for it and you know it. If you’re gonna get a ticket you may as well do the crime right? So the officer, rather than writing another citation you know will get thrown, has your car towed. He settles you with a $300 tow AND a citation OVER A GESTURE that he is legally and constitutionally WRONG about, and you know he is. He then arrests you for it, and you spend an hour at the precinct settling this. Then when you’re free to go, you have to bum a ride to go get your fucking car. A month or so later, you have take time off work to go to court. You miss making probably another $300 because a day off. It gets dismissed because the cop is a fucking chucklehead. You are now out $500 for missing work and other fees, have had to go get your own car, and have been harassed by state patrol. 3 years later the ACLU says "hey so you were right, and we want to sue over it. Would you NOT say “yeah fuck that dude” and sign on for it?
Minor footnote, he won 100,000, and 75,000 went to the ACLU
Legal fees can easily reach into the thousands…
You right they quickly get prohibitively expensive. But because of the 3 year gap idk if he asked them to sue or they thought they had a good case or what that arrangement looked like.
You’re making my point for me. If you’re super generous about paying this man for all his trouble, loss of freedom, court costs, etc. (and we should be) …and then you double that for good measure… and then you double THAT for punitive purposes (and yes we should)… You still are far short of $175k.
I’m only bringing it up because it’s our money as taxpayers. The ACLU should not be another piggy at the public trough.
The defense would be the state, the state failed to argue he didn’t deserve it, and the ACLU their cut. I don’t remember if the article said it was by judge or jury, but even when a jury comes out with X number a judge can still say “yeah no that’s too high, I’m awarding Y instead.” So either way it was achieved, a judge felt that this was a fair number. Idk what to say beyond that other than I wish I could make 100k off something so silly but that is a lot of bullshit to put up with to be right. ACLU deserves some cut for doing probably all this man’s legal grunt work and legal time since he likely didn’t pay out of pocket for a retainer.