|
When Jan Baisch was appointed to represent Joyce Lynn Allen in a lawsuit against Portland Police Officer George Fort, he faced what other lawyers might consider a nightmare. "She's just like a total psycho who goes off on every little thing," Baisch says. "I considered it a professional challenge." Baisch was up to the task. On Feb. 13, a U.S. District Court jury awarded the unemployed Portland woman $500,000 to cover the physical and mental injuries she suffered as a result of a 1989 confrontation with Fort. Such a large award in a case against the Portland Police Bureau is noteworthy by itself. But Allen's case also shows that it is possible to win over a jury even without a sympathetic victim. Fort's run-in with Allen began when she and her husband got in a dispute with the management of John's Meatmarket, a Northwest Portland restaurant, over a half-price coupon. When the Allens left without paying the full bill, the manager called the cops. Fort and a partner, Darrell Miller, responded. After a confrontation in which Joyce Allen struck Fort in the chest, he broke her arm trying to handcuff her. In his 12-year history with the Portland Police Bureau, Fort was the subject of several complaints and lawsuits regarding excessive force, although he has never been found guilty of the charge (WW, May 31, 1995). In the Allen case, Fort's undoing proved to be his words, not his muscle: "You are under arrest for theft," he told her, "and you are going to have to come outside with me." As the veteran officer later testified, he made the statement knowing he had no authority to arrest her for a dispute over a coupon. In 1991 Allen filed an excessive-force lawsuit that lost at trial. But when she appealed the decision--with her husband, Dwight, an unemployed printer, filing legal briefs on her behalf--the higher court agreed that she had been wronged. The court didn't rule on the excessive-force claim. Instead, it ruled that Fort's arrest of Allen was illegal because at that point she was merely in a civil dispute. The court sent the case back to the District Court for a jury to consider damages. That's where Baisch came in. Some lawyers might have tried to hide their client's faults. Baisch played them up. Baisch told WW that he leveled with jurors about the Allens. "These people are psychos and you're not going to believe this story," he said, taking time to note "how obnoxious and sickening" his client was. Joyce Allen, he argued, was severely mentally ill. In the '70s, she was diagnosed with a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but in 1989, shortly before the incident with Fort, treatment was easing her symptoms. When Fort broke her arm, Baisch said, it was "like a triggering point in her life." Since then, her lawyers say, her illness has grown so bad that she has barely left the house in nearly a decade. According to Baisch, Allen is so afraid of germs she takes two-hour showers twice a day. The Allens testified that Dwight takes care of his wife 24 hours a day: In the morning, he flosses her teeth. Every night, she has him sterilize the bathroom and vacuum the entire house. "If he doesn't do this, she will obsess about the fear of contamination and death," explains John Coletti, a lawyer who tried the case with Baisch. The approach worked. Of the half-million dollar verdict, $425,000 was awarded to cover medical treatment, including psychiatric treatment, for the rest of Allen's life. Michael Lehner, an attorney who represented Fort and the City of Portland, was stunned. "I was and still am somewhat skeptical about the degree of her psychological disorder," he told WW, saying that during during depositions, she didn't seem severely mentally ill. Although Fort displayed "kind of a gruff manner" on the witness stand, Lehner says he is sympathetic. "Poor old George Fort has been the object of a couple of claims," Lehner told WW. "For some reason, he has been targeted by plaintiffs' lawyers who like to practice in this area.... It has taken a toll on him and probably led to his early retirement. He's not really as bad a guy as he's been pictured." |
