Cole County judge to decide on $1.3 million more in Ferguson lawsuit
Haley Swaino
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Cole County judge heard several motions on Ryan Ferguson’s historic verdict against Travelers Insurance Tuesday morning.
Both sides are asking for adjustments to the final dollar amount that Ferguson will receive.
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 that Ferguson and the detectives were granted after his wrongful murder conviction of Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt.
Attorney Michael Berry asked Cole County Judge Cotton Walker in June to add at least $1.3 million to the $43.8 million judgment he awarded Ferguson. Berry said Walker did not properly add 129 days’ interest on the award.
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 $1.3 million more. That would also affect how much money Travelers would be expected to pay in post-judgment interest.
“The verdict right now is at [$]43 million because there’s prejudgment and post-judgment interest,” Ferguson’s attorney, Kathleen Zellner, said. “We think there was an error in that calculation, and it should actually be [$]45 million. So that was one of the motions, that the judge had just miscalculated the number of days.”
Zellner reiterated those arguments in court Tuesday. She said Travelers disputed multiple things, from proof of bad faith to award calculations.
“They’re trying to argue that we didn’t prove the bad faith, that we’re not entitled to the punitive damages. They’ve disputed the interest rate calculations. All of the things you do when you get a really bad result,” Zellner said.
She said she doesn’t think the judge overturning those things is very likely.
“He’s heard a lot of these arguments along the way. There’s nothing really new, and he rejected all those arguments when he entered the judgment on June 16,” Zellner said.
The defense argued that interest on the judgment should be subject to Missouri’s cap on punitive damages.
Zellner said the correct decision was made.
If the court were to follow the defense argument, that would reduce the punitive damages to just $16 million, a reduction of $8 million.
Zellner told ABC 17 News after Tuesday’s motion hearing that Walker will decide by Oct. 16.
They will then have 30 days until an appeal is filed.
“This verdict is going to be affirmed,” Zellner said. “And if it goes up on appeal, it’s going to be even higher because of the interest that’s running.”