$100 Million Federal Verdict for Man Paralyzed After Atlanta Officer Tased Him Without Warning

On July 10, 2018, Jerry Blasingame was asking drivers for money along a highway south of downtown Atlanta when City of Atlanta Officer Jon Grubbs spotted him from a patrol car. Grubbs exited the vehicle and ordered Blasingame to stop. When Blasingame moved toward a wooded embankment, Grubbs gave chase and, without verbal warning, deployed his Taser from behind, striking Blasingame in the back.

Blasingame was 65 years old. The electric shock dropped him forward. He tumbled down a steep dirt path and struck his head on the concrete pad of a traffic control box at the bottom of the hill. The impact snapped his cervical spine back. He was airlifted to Grady Memorial Hospital and has been quadriplegic since that afternoon, breathing through a tracheotomy tube and requiring around-the-clock care at a long-term care facility.

The lawsuit, filed in 2019, alleged Fourth Amendment excessive force against Grubbs and a Monell claim against the City of Atlanta for deficient officer training and policy. Darren Tobin of Tobin Injury Law served as co-counsel alongside Ven Johnson and Ayanna Hatchett of Ven Johnson Law, a Detroit firm with national civil rights experience. The legal team argued Grubbs had no lawful justification to use a Taser on an unarmed man who posed no threat, and that the city's failure to properly train officers made that use of force foreseeable.

On August 26, 2022, after just under eight hours of deliberation, the jury returned a $100 million verdict: $20 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages against Grubbs, and $60 million in compensatory damages against the City of Atlanta.

The $60 million against the city was later vacated by U.S. District Judge Steve C. Jones, who found insufficient evidence to support the Monell claim. Grubbs's share was subsequently reduced to $21 million ($20 million compensatory, $1 million punitive) after Judge Jones found the original $20 million punitive award exceeded constitutional limits. In 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting Grubbs's qualified immunity defense and upholding the $21 million judgment against the officer personally.