Handy Jones v. City of St. Paul, Minnesota
- John Tunheim
- 0:20-cv-00707
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 6
In Handy Jones v. City of St. Paul, Judge Tunheim granted in part and denied in part pretrial motions, denying new pain-and-suffering damages and allowing additional witnesses.
Kim Diane Handy Jones and the defendants in the upcoming compensatory-damages retrial. The ruling bars the proposed new pain-and-suffering damages category, denies the attorney-fee motion without prejudice, and permits four named beneficiaries to testify; it does not permit Jordan Wild to testify about conscious pain and suffering.
What happened
In Handy Jones v. City of St. Paul, Kim Diane Handy Jones sought changes before a retrial on compensatory damages in the case arising from Cordale Quinn Handy’s 2017 death after St. Paul police officers shot him. A previous jury found Officer Nathaniel Younce liable and awarded compensatory and punitive damages, but Jones rejected a reduced compensatory-damages amount and chose a new trial on compensatory damages.
Jones asked to add a new category of damages for Handy’s conscious pain and suffering before his death and to add witnesses. She also sought reasonable attorney fees. The defendants opposed the proposed changes, and the court considered whether the earlier rulings in the case prevented the new damages claim and whether the late-disclosed witnesses would unfairly harm the defendants.
Judge John R. Tunheim granted in part and denied in part Jones’s pretrial motions. He denied the request to add conscious pain-and-suffering damages, denied the attorney-fee motion without prejudice, and granted the request to add witnesses, allowing JaJuan Handy, Isaiah Jones, Angel Jones, and Whitney Jones to testify about damages.
The detailed version
- Handy Jones v. City of St. Paul, Minnesota · No. 0:20-cv-00707
- John Tunheim
- Jan. 3, 2025
Background
Kim Diane Handy Jones, acting as trustee for the next of kin of Cordale Quinn Handy, brought this action after Handy was shot and killed by St. Paul police officers in 2017. The case proceeded to a bifurcated trial, meaning liability and damages were tried separately. The jury found Officer Nathaniel Younce liable and awarded $10,000,000 in compensatory damages and $1,500,000 in punitive damages.
Officer Younce and the City of St. Paul moved to reduce the compensatory-damages award. The earlier court granted that request and determined that the maximum compensatory award the jury could have made was $2,500,000. Jones rejected the reduced award and elected a new trial on compensatory damages.
Before the retrial, Jones sought to add a category of damages for Cordale Handy’s conscious pain and suffering before his death. She also sought to add beneficiary witnesses and requested reasonable attorney fees. The court noted that the attorney-fee issue could be addressed after the retrial.
New Compensatory Damages
The court denied Jones’s request to add damages for Handy’s conscious pain and suffering. It applied the law-of-the-case doctrine, which generally requires a court to follow legal decisions already made earlier in the same case unless those decisions were clearly wrong and would cause serious unfairness.
The court found that Jones knew about the possible damages category before the first trial but chose not to raise it then because doing so might have delayed the trial. The court concluded that she could have presented the argument earlier and found no clear error or serious unfairness in the earlier ruling that barred the new evidence at retrial. The motion to add the new damages category was therefore denied.
Additional Witnesses
The court granted Jones’s motion to amend her witness list. Although Jones had not disclosed the beneficiaries as potential witnesses before the first trial, the defendants knew their identities and therefore would not be prejudiced by the late disclosure. The court also found that each beneficiary could appropriately testify about the loss resulting from Handy’s death and that the testimony could assist the jury in determining damages.
The court allowed JaJuan Handy, Isaiah Jones, Angel Jones, and Whitney Jones to testify regarding damages. Because the court denied the request to add conscious pain-and-suffering damages, it also determined that testimony by Jordan Wild on that subject was unnecessary and would not be permitted.
Order
Judge John R. Tunheim ordered that Jones’s pretrial motions were GRANTED in part and DENIED in part:
- The motion to alter, amend, or supplement the pleadings was DENIED.
- The motion for reasonable attorney fees was DENIED without prejudice.
- The motion to allow additional witnesses was GRANTED, and JaJuan Handy, Isaiah Jones, Angel Jones, and Whitney Jones may testify.
The order addressed pretrial issues for the compensatory-damages retrial and did not determine the underlying liability claim.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.