Travelers ordered to pay $37.9M related to wrongful conviction settlement

A Missouri state court jury on Friday ordered Travelers Cos. Inc. to pay $37.9 million to six police officers and a man wrongfully convicted of murdering a journalist for refusing to cover an $11 million wrongful conviction settlement.

The jury ordered the insurer, which provided coverage to the city of Columbia, Missouri, from 2006 to 2011 to pay $2.9 million in compensatory damages and $35 million in punitive damages to Ryan Ferguson, whose murder conviction was overturned in 2013, and police officers Latisha Bruns, Brian Liebhard, Jeffrey Nichols, John Short, Lloyd Simmons III and William Westbrook.

Mr. Ferguson was convicted and served 10 years in prison for the 2001 murder of Kent Heitholt, the sports editor of the Columbia Daily Tribune. After his conviction was overturned in 2013, he sued the city and the police officers. The parties reached an $11 million settlement in 2017, court records show.

Mr. Ferguson and the police officers sued Travelers and one of its subsidiaries, St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Co., in 2020, for refusing to cover the legal fees and settlement of the wrongful conviction lawsuit.

Representatives for the parties did not respond to requests for comment.