Monday, March 1, 1999 | 11:24 a.m.
Brenda Nadell learned a valuable lesson in how costly a victory in a civil rights case can be.
The verdict in her lawsuit against three Metro Police officers and the department in federal court ended Friday with a seven-member jury awarding her $1 in damages.
Though technically she won by proving that at least one cop twice her size beat her up and the department violated her civil rights by failing to discipline the officer or properly investigate her claims stemming from the 1994 incident, it was little consolation to her.
She and her husband, Brian, had spent tens of thousands of dollars on her lawsuit and she said she is living with deep emotional scars.
"This was a hollow victory," Curt Obront, the Nadells' co-attorney, said after the verdict was read.
Brenda put her head on the plaintiff's table and sobbed as the court clerk read the verdict. She was comforted by Brian, who was unsuccessful in his bid to be awarded damages for loss of marital intimacy.
"Their lives have been devastated, and now this is a bruise on top of a bruise," said their other attorney, Hugh Davis, of the verdict that was reached after about 13 hours of jury deliberations over 1 1/2 days.
While it won't pay large compensatory damages, Metro suffered a defeat in principle. Unless an appeal is won, the stain of a civil rights violation judgment will stand against one of its officers and the entire department.
"It's much too early to say anything," Metro Police spokesman Steve Meriwether said. "There is too much that needs to be analyzed and it would be unfair for us to comment now."
The Nevada leader of the American Civil Liberties Union said that while he is reluctant to question a jury's decision, "I am nevertheless troubled" by it.
"It certainly seems that the jury, by awarding such a small amount of money, has sent the wrong message to the police and the rest of us regarding the value we should place on these rights and the penalties we should impose when they are violated," local ACLU Executive Director Gary Peck said.
The jury found that Officer Steven Leyba violated Nadell's civil rights on July 22, 1994, by using excessive force in arresting her and for retaliating against her First Amendment rights of filing a report against him with Metro's Internal Affairs Bureau.
The jury also found that the police department violated her rights by failing to discipline Leyba for using excessive force and by its Internal Affairs Bureau failing to properly investigate her complaint.
Officers Greg Ziel and Michael Etherton were found not to have violated Nadell's civil rights.
"We thought it was a just verdict based on the evidence," said Brian Whitaker, attorney for the officers. "We don't know what we will do yet about an appeal. We will talk about it."
Jurors declined to be interviewed, but in the Foley Federal Building lobby after the verdict, six of the seven jurors chatted with the attorneys for both sides. Some said the case was "hard."
Davis said that as an attorney who had just technically won the case, he could not feel vindicated because of what his clients have suffered over the last five years and how the verdict further has devastated them.
"If this verdict does something to make Metro Police and its Internal Affairs Bureau do something about the way they handle excessive force complaints ... then it was a victory," Davis said.
Nadell was arrested as she slept on the evening of July 22, 1994, at 5464 Consul Ave., near Nellis Boulevard and Sahara Avenue.
During the trial, Brenda Nadell testified she had been drinking the night of the incident at the home of a man who was interviewing her then-19-year-old sister for a baby-sitting job.
Police were called to the home to investigate a domestic dispute after the owner and his wife got into an argument and after Nadell, then 27, went to a bedroom to sleep off the alcohol she had consumed. The wife suffered a sliced arm and had left by ambulance before the police arrived.
Upon arriving, police found blood at the residence and went into the room where Nadell was sleeping.
A scuffle ensued between Nadell, who was pregnant but still weighed only about 100 pounds, and Leyba, a short, stocky man who weighs more than 200 pounds.
According to testimony, Leyba hit Nadell between the legs during a struggle. It was testimony that apparently played a role in the jury determining that excessive force was used. Nadell later terminated the pregnancy.
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