Court upholds $122.5 million judgment in bombing case

LITTLE ROCK—Arkansas' highest court on Thursday upheld a $122.5 million civil judgment against a former doctor who was convicted in a 2009 bombing that severely injured the state medical board's chairman, rejecting his argument that a judge should have allowed him to prove he wasn't responsible for the explosion.

Justices upheld a lower court's 2013 summary judgment that Dr. Trent Pierce was entitled to damages from Randeep Mann in the bombing. Pierce was severely injured by a grenade that was hidden in a spare tire outside his West Memphis home. Mann is serving a life sentence for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and other charges in that attack.

A jury awarded the compensatory and punitive damages last year. His attorney had argued that Mann should have been allowed to defend himself in the lawsuit, saying he would have had safeguards in civil court that weren't available to him in the criminal case.

"Given that the criminal trial lasted five weeks, it cannot be said that he lacked a full and fair opportunity to litigate his responsibility for the actions that led to Dr. Pierce's injuries with a higher burden of proof than he would face in a civil trial," Justice Robin Wynne wrote in the court's ruling.

Read more: http://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/arkansas/story/2016/dec/02/court-upholds-1225-million-judgment-bombing-case/651357/