Habersham County Commissioners met behind closed doors for more than an hour Thursday afternoon. When the executive session ended County Attorney Donnie Hunt said they are now closer to a settlement in the case of 2-year-old Bounkham Phonesavanh. “We’re in draft number 8 of that. We don’t have an agreement until it is approved by the plaintiffs.”
Phonesavanh’s parents are suing the county government and other agencies involved in a May 28, 2014 drug raid on a home on Lakeview Heights Circle in Cornelia. The child suffered lacerations and burns to his face and chest from a flash grenade thrown into the house by officers executing a no-knock search warrant.
There is a second lawsuit, filed by the owner of the home Amanda Thonetheva, for damages to the house during the raid. Both are being settled by National Fire Insurance on behalf of Habersham County.
A draft document released earlier this week shows the insurance company expects to pay upwards of a million dollars in total. As Now Habersham reported first on March 23 – that is the maximum the county’s National Fire policy will pay on any one incident meaning there would be no coverage for any future legal costs in relation to the May 28 drug raid.
Just in case something else pops up, Habersham County Commissioners want a deal to extend their coverage on this incident by an additional $75,000. County Manager Phil Sutton says, “They (National Fire) would agree to go beyond those limits to that extent to continue defense if it’s necessary.”
To be clear – this does not mean our county government will ever be without insurance. The policy has a $1 million cap on each individual incident but $3 million in total coverage. “National Fire’s point of view is – this is one incident,” according to Hunt, “so the $3 million cap doesn’t come into play.”
The latest draft of the settlement is now with plaintiff’s council. Hunt expects there will be more drafts going back and forth to structure the payout before it’s all over.
