The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) filed a series of motions this week against the $15 million jury award given to Sergeant Kevin Davis in early February.  

The motions ask the courts to set aside the jury’s verdict and to either have a new trial or enter a judgment for a directed verdict. ACSO said in the motions that the $15 million award amount is grossly disproportionate. 

“The amount awarded for emotional distress is outrageous and bears no reasonable relation to the amount of damages proved and the injury suffered, it is not supported by the evidence, and could not be adduced in a logical manner by reasonable persons,” the ACSO motion reads.  

The motion said the award amount, $4 million more than Davis asked for, shows prejudice and passion on the part of the jury and claimed the jury reached the amount through speculation and conjecture, not based on the evidence. 

Instead, the attorneys for ACSO listed $30,000 as a more appropriate award for emotional distress, claiming the plaintiff failed to prove the distress, and said the award for lost wages should be reduced to $16,457. 

ACSO tried but failed to enter a motion for a directed verdict during the trial. This motion would allow the judge to enter judgment in a party’s favor “before submitting the case to the jury because there is no legally sufficient evidentiary foundation on which a reasonable jury could find for the other party,” according to Black’s Law Dictionary. 

The sheriff’s office contends in the motions that Davis still doesn’t have enough proof for a racial discrimination and retaliation case.  

“There is insufficient reasonable evidence upon which the jury could legally predicate a verdict in favor of the Plaintiff,” ACSO said in its motion. 

The motions also said that ACSO attorneys met with Davis’s attorneys on the matter but were unable to reach a resolution.