San Diego to Pay $12 Million in Death of Man Hogtied by Sheriff’s Deputies

After a seven-year legal battle, San Diego County is set to pay $12 million over the death of a man who was beaten, shocked with a stun gun and hogtied by a dozen sheriff’s deputies in 2015.

The settlement to the family of the man, Lucky Phounsy, was approved by Judge Mitchell D. Dembin of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California this week.

Tim Scott and Mark Fleming, lawyers for Loan Thi Minh Nguyen, Mr. Phounsy’s widow, and their two young children, said that though the legal battle had not been about the money, the family felt like it finally had achieved justice.

“The family is relieved to be able to start the healing process and accept the settlement as the clear statement that it is, which is responsibility by the county,” the lawyers said in an interview with The New York Times.

San Diego County officials and the Sheriff’s Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.

Mr. Phounsy, 32, died after a confrontation with deputies from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, after calling 911 while experiencing what the lawyers described as a mental health crisis.

On April 13, 2015, Mr. Phounsy was at a family member’s home to celebrate his son’s second birthday when his family noticed that he was becoming increasingly paranoid, according to his lawyers. He had been unable to sleep for three days and his family decided to take him to a hospital. As they prepared to leave, Mr. Phounsy called 911, worried that someone was going to hurt him and his family. During the call, a family member told the dispatcher that no one was in danger and that Mr. Phounsy was unarmed.

Two deputies for the Sheriff’s Department arrived and attempted to handcuff Mr. Phounsy, who was confused and became increasingly agitated. They then shocked him with a stun gun and struck him with a baton, according to a court filing. Mr. Phounsy retreated to family members, including his wife, who tried to calm him down and comfort him, but 10 more deputies arrived and the situation escalated, the family lawyers said in the suit.

The deputies placed Mr. Phounsy on his stomach and hogtied him, binding his hands and feet together behind his back and leaving him in the driveway for 30 minutes. On the way to the hospital, he had a spit-sock, a mesh hood meant to prevent someone from spitting, placed on his head.

Mr. Phounsy’s heart stopped on the way to the hospital, and though emergency room workers resuscitated him, he died a week later.

The county argued in a court filing that Mr. Phounsy had been aggressive with the officers, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The case, which was twice tried in federal court, initially ended in a mistrial in September 2021, after a jury was a deadlocked.

Then, last year, the jury found that the deputies had been negligent and used excessive force, deciding on an $85 million award at the time. The judge later threw out that settlement amount, though he upheld the jury’s decision about the deputies’ conduct while restraining Mr. Phounsy.

A release from Mr. Scott and Mr. Fleming, the lawyers for Mr. Phounsy’s family, said that the Sheriff’s Department had cleared the deputies of wrongdoing.

The case brought up criticisms around the use of maximum restraints, in which a person’s ankles and wrists are bound together, typically while they are face down. The technique is often used to subdue combative or disorderly people, but it is known to be lethal because it compresses the torso and restricts breathing, potentially leading to what is referred to as positional asphyxia or restraint asphyxia.

Many police departments have banned the most extreme form of prone restraint, hogtying, and in 1995 the Justice Department warned of its dangers.

The settlement was the latest in a series of multimillion-dollar payouts by San Diego County over the past several months for misconduct by deputies; altogether, the sums have totaled nearly $20 million, a figure that could grow, according to The San Diego Times-Union.