Wrongful Death During Repossession Lawsuit Moves to Arbitration

Allstar Recovery and two employees are named as defendants in the lawsuit

Decatur, AL – November 15, 2024 – They didn’t pull the trigger, but they did request the police standby that led to the death of borrower Stephen Perkins. Now, the Repossessors and the agency they work for are facing a wrongful death lawsuit. While successfully moving the lawsuit to arbitration, the arbitrator is not necessarily one with a history of good relations with the repossession industry, it is the Alabama Better Business Bureau.

Wrongful Death During Repossession Lawsuit Moves to Arbitration — Steve Perkins and Family

Named in the lawsuit are the Lender, Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PenFed), America’s second-largest federal credit union, serving over 2.9 million members worldwide with $35.4 billion in assets as of November 1, 2023, according to their website.

Allstar Recovery and the repossessors involved in the incident were named as Caleb Combs and Richie Brady.

The Shooting

As previously reported, 39-year-old father and borrower Stephen Perkins, was gunned down by officers from the Decatur Police Department outside his home on September 29 in Decatur, Alabama. Police claimed that a repossessor, later identified as employed by All Star Recovery, had previously attempted to repossess Perkins truck when it is alleged that Perkins pulled a gun on him. This resulted in the agent calling 911.

Wrongful Death During Repossession Lawsuit Moves to Arbitration While police have yet to release police bodycam footage of the incident, video surveillance cameras captured from neighbors captured the moment Perkins was gunned down. A total of eighteen rounds were fired at him.

Video was also captured showing an agent from Allstar Recovery towing away Perkins truck as he laid dying just feet away. He begins leaving the scene after about 30 seconds into the video while officers can be seen still patting the dying Perkins on the ground behind him. Perkins’ final words were said to be ‘help.’

The video footage had triggered renewed outrage in Decatur at both the police department for allowing the repossession to commence and at All Star recovery whom local activist claim was a needless death.

In the video, at Decatur officers can be seen standing over the body of Perkins in his front lawn after gunning him down. At the same time, the repossession agent can be seen towing away Perkins’ white GMC Sierra.

The Decatur Police only made things worse when they admitted to reporting a crucial piece of their original allegations that Perkins had been told to drop a gun that he’d been holding but had refused to follow the orders to do so.

Decator Police Chief, Todd Pinion later said Perkins had been ordered to ‘get on the ground’ by officers who’d identified themselves as police. Video evidence showed that officers opened fire before the final order was given when Perkins pointed his flashlight reportedly attached to his pistol. The omission of this critical detail created a firestorm of outrage and suspicion by neighbors and the community.

The lawsuit against Officer Bailey Marquette has been allowed to go forward, but a federal judge has dismissed several claims in the lawsuit, including those filed against three former Decatur police officers – Christopher Mukkadam, Joey Williams and Vance Summers and the City of Decatur.

The repossession company, Allstar Recovery and the two employees have argued they want the claims against them handled by an arbitrator, saying the Perkins family’s claims fall under the arbitration clause laid out in the purchase agreement for Stephen Perkins’ truck.

In a September court filing, Perkins family lawyers argued that the wrongful death claims in the case fall outside the scope of the arbitration agreement because they are not contract-related. They also argued that since the company chose the arbitration forum, they should not be required to arbitrate claims to an ‘unidentified and unknown’ arbitrator.

But the order granting a motion to compel arbitration on Thursday by U.S. District Judge Corey Maze said the question of whether arbitration is the right forum, the “arbitrability,” would be up to the Better Business Bureau of North Alabama to decide.

“Allstar contacted the contractually agreed upon arbitrator—the Better Business Bureau of North Alabama—about this case. But the Better Business Bureau of North Alabama declined to serve as arbitrator … All that BBB must do is arbitrate the scope of the arbitration agreement. If the BBB finds that the claims Perkins brings don’t fit within the scope of the arbitration agreement, then the BBB can simply send Perkins’s claims back to this court,” the filing says.

Documents state the BBB’s arbitration process is intended to “resolve disputes between a buyer and a seller, and a wrongful death claim exceeds the capabilities,” of that process. The BBB previously declined to arbitrate the matter, citing this process. The court also denied Allstar Recovery’s motion to dismiss the claims against them.

Despite the claims against three of the former officers and the City of Decatur being dropped, the claims against Marquette were allowed to move forward because the court found the Perkins’ family lawyers — at this stage — made a successful argument that Marquette’s use of deadly force was not justified.

“Assuming these facts are true, Officer Marquette would not be entitled to qualified immunity because, when Marquette used deadly force, Perkins was neither trying to leave the scene nor posing a serious threat of physical harm to others,” The court said. “Nor did Marquette warn Perkins that he might use deadly force before he shot him.”The judge also said that the dismissals, including of some claims against Marquette, were done “without prejudice” and he will allow the Perkins’ family lawyers to reargue the claims one more time.

Marquette’s criminal trial in the case is set for April.

Source: Yahoo News

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