Nebraska County to Challenge Insurers Over Coverage for $28M Lawsuit

Nebraska’s Gage County will challenge its insurers’ decision not to cover it for a $28.1 million judgment awarded to six people who were wrongfully convicted of murder.

KWBE reports that the county board approved hiring a law firm to fight its insurers’ decision not to cover the lawsuit filed by six people who were wrongfully convicted in the 1985 murder of a Beatrice woman.

County officials have said Gage County doesn’t have the resources to pay the judgment, which it has appealed.

The Keating O’Gara law firm will receive more money if it manages to collect from the Nebraska Intergovernmental Risk Management Association or EMC Insurance.

The six people who sued spent a combined 77 years in prison in the death of 68-year-old Helen Wilson before DNA testing cleared them in 2008.

James Dean, Kathleen Gonzalez, Debra Shelden, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Thomas Winslow and Joseph White were the first people in the state cleared by DNA evidence, which was made possible by a 2007 Nebraska Supreme Court ruling.

Wilson’s killing has since been linked to Bruce Allen Smith, who grew up in Beatrice. Investigators said Smith returned to the town days before the slaying and then quickly went back to Oklahoma. He died in 1992.

Related:

• County in Nebraska Seeks Insurance Coverage in Wrong Conviction Case
• Nebraska County Appeals $28.1M Judgment Won by Exonerated Inmates