TUSCALOOSA, AL — Attorneys for former Alabama basketball player Kai Spears are asking a federal judge to increase the damages awarded after final judgement in his lawsuit against the New York Times Co., arguing the court used the wrong figure when applying Alabama's statutory cap on punitive damages.
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The motion, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, asks U.S. District Judge Annemarie Carney Axon to amend the final judgment and increase Spears' punitive damages from $3 million to $5.25 million. If granted, the change would bring Spears' total award to $7 million.
The filing comes just days after Axon entered final judgment in the case, reducing an eight-person federal jury's original $9.25 million award to $4.75 million under Alabama's statutory cap on punitive damages.
The jury on Aug. 20 awarded Spears $750,000 in compensatory damages on his defamation claim, $1 million in compensatory damages for false light invasion of privacy and $7.25 million in punitive damages on the false light claim.
Axon subsequently reduced the punitive award to $3 million, reasoning that Alabama law capped the payout at three times the $1 million in compensatory damages awarded specifically for false light.
Spears' attorneys agree that Alabama's punitive damages cap applies, but their new motion disputes how Axon calculated it.
They argue that Alabama Code §6-11-21(a) caps punitive damages at three times the total compensatory damages awarded to a party in an action, rather than three times the compensatory damages awarded on the particular claim that generated the punitive award.
Under that interpretation, Spears' lawyers contend the court should combine his $750,000 defamation award and $1 million false light award, resulting in $1.75 million in total compensatory damages. Three times that amount would produce a punitive damages cap of $5.25 million.
That would leave Spears with a total judgment of $7 million — $1.75 million in compensatory damages and $5.25 million in punitive damages.
As Patch previously reported, attorneys for Spears initially asked the jury for $15 million in total damages before deliberations began after nearly two weeks of trial.
Spears is represented by Tuscaloosa attorneys Matt Glover and Ginger Buck, along with West Virginia attorney Stephen P. New.
As Patch previously reported, the underlying lawsuit stemmed from a March 2023 New York Times report that incorrectly placed Spears in then-Alabama basketball star Brandon Miller's vehicle during the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Jamea Harris near the Tuscaloosa Strip.
Spears was actually several blocks away in another vehicle when the shots rang out.
After nearly two weeks of testimony in August, the federal jury found the New York Times liable for defamation and false light invasion of privacy.
The newspaper has maintained that the verdict and damages award are contrary to law and unsupported by the evidence.
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