$1,280,000 of Settlement is Attorney’s Fees and Litigation Costs.
As reported by Jennifer Muir in a January 22, 2010 article in The Orange County Register (“Shooting by deputies gets costlier”), Orange County supervisors have approved a nearly $1.6 million settlement in a case involving deputies who allegedly shot a San Juan Capistrano man with pepper-filled gun pellets inside his home in July 2009.
The County has agreed to pay $1,594,273.92, which includes paying $300,000 to the reported victim (following a federal jury verdict in the same amount), $1.2 million in attorney’s fees (divided between three attorneys), and $80,000 in litigation costs. Ms. Muir’s title to the article says it all.
BONUS. From Wikipedia’s article on the riot gun:
“Pepper-spray projectiles, commonly called pepperballs, are direct-fire paintball-like capsules filled with a pepper spray solution of capsaicin. They provide a longer range, more user-friendly way to disperse pepper spray. Many sorts can be fired from paintball markers. Other sorts are designed to be fired from specially-designed pepperball guns whose muzzle velocity is greater than a paintball marker: if the velocity is not high enough the projectile will not break. As a paintball impact is mildly painful, it can discourage rioters by itself, but the pepper spray incapacitates and discourages a larger number of rioters with each shot.”