Botham Jean’s parents and sister have taken Dallas back to court, filing a lawsuit in Dallas County District Court this week that asks a judge to force the city to pay the civil judgment tied to Jean’s 2018 killing. The family wants the city to cover the nearly $98.65 million federal verdict entered against former officer Amber Guyger. In the new filing, they cast the dispute as both a clear legal duty and a moral obligation for the city to indemnify its officers under its liability plan.
In papers filed this week, the family’s lawyers argue that the city’s Officer and Employee Liability Plan requires Dallas to cover losses caused by employees who were acting within the scope of their duties, and they say the city “has failed to satisfy all or any part of the judgment.” According to The Dallas Morning News, the plaintiffs are Botham Jean’s parents and sister, and the suit was filed in Dallas County District Court this week.
Federal award and breakdown
Last November, a federal jury found that Guyger violated Jean’s constitutional rights and ordered roughly $98.65 million in damages, about $38 million in compensatory damages and $60 million in punitive damages. That verdict is the immediate basis for the family’s latest effort to collect, according to AP.
Conviction and parole
Amber Guyger was convicted of murder in October 2019 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to a press release from the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. She was denied parole in October 2024 and remains incarcerated, according to CBS News. The family’s civil case comes on top of the criminal conviction and the later federal trial that produced the large damages award.
Why the city might be on the hook
Jean’s relatives originally sued both Guyger and the city not long after the 2018 shooting, but a judge later dismissed Dallas from the case after attorneys argued the complaint did not prove causation and noted that Guyger was off duty at the time, according to The Dallas Morning News. The November 2024 federal trial ended with a verdict only against Guyger. Now the family is back in state court, asking a Dallas judge to hold the city financially responsible under its indemnity rules. The new suit turns on whether Dallas’s plan covers this kind of liability even though the officer was off duty when she shot Jean.
What the city’s liability plan says
City rules for indemnifying officers and employees require the municipality to defend and pay losses that arise from acts within the scope of a plan member’s duties, but a City Attorney’s Office report notes that the ordinance also carves out intentional or criminal acts, fraud and gross negligence. Those exclusions are likely to become a major battleground as the case moves forward. The family’s lawyers maintain that, read as a whole, the plan’s language obligates the city to step in and satisfy the federal judgment…