Settlements, Insurance Risk, And A Henry County Sheriff's Race

“We only paid one claim” is the kind of line that can decide an election, but it can also distract from what really costs a county money. I’m attorney Mark Nicholson, and I respond to Sheriff John Sproles’ comments about tort claims, lawsuits, and why so many matters never reach a courtroom. If you’ve ever wondered how government liability works, why insurers get nervous, or what a settlement actually signals, this conversation is for you.

I dig into the difference between a court judgment and a settlement, and why a defendant may pay to keep a case away from a jury even while insisting they did nothing wrong. I explain how a notice of tort claim functions as a required warning shot before a lawsuit, why big dollar demands are common at the start, and how mediation often lands “somewhere in the middle.” We also talk about Indiana’s state court damages cap of $700,000, why some claims end up in federal court, and how repeated payouts can snowball into real taxpayer costs.

I also address the personal attacks head-on, including being called an “ambulance chaser,” and I share my view of what it means when people say they were harmed and come looking for help. If you care about police accountability, civil rights lawsuits, county insurance premiums, and the Henry County sheriff election, listen through to the end and decide what leadership looks like. Subscribe, share this with a local voter, and leave a review with the question you still want answered.

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Transcript

Why He Responds To The Video

SPEAKER_01 0:01

I'm Attorney Martin Nicholson with Law to Martin Nicholson, also known as the Battery Man for my folks on criminal battery cases. And I want to talk today about a video I received that has Cheryl Sproles in it, and he's talking about me. Uh alleges I'm an ambulance chaser. I've been called worse. And he talks about the process of a tort claim and kind of celebrating that there they haven't had a lot of cases that actually go to court. So let's look at some of the statements he made in this video. So one of the things that I noticed in this video that someone sent me regarding uh Sheriff Sproles here before you vote in Henry County Republican Sheriff Candid interviews.

The One Claim Claim

SPEAKER_01 0:54

The Sheriff Sproles mentions something that I find very interesting. Listen.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Had to pay one claim that was required by the court to pay. One. And that total was less than eleven thousand dollars. So you hear all of this like the insurance companies paying millions of dollars because of John Scrolls. We have had to pay one claim in my entire tenure so far of three and a half, three years and three months, uh totaling less than $10,000.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

So it sounds like he's trying to say this as some kind of highlight, some kind of you know bragging point or something like that. But the the problem that I think he's missing, and I hope the people that are voting don't miss is that these other cases that he's referring to that did not go to court is they settled. And usually if a case settles, it's an indication that the other party, the defendant in this case, Sheriff Sproles, Henry County Sheriff's Department, the insurance company thinks the case is so bad that we do not want it to get in front of a court. We don't want it to get in front of a jury, so we're going to settle. So that's what's happening on these cases is that they are settling. Because they, being the defendant, does not want to risk going to trial because that is one going to drive up the expense of the insurance company, and then two, it's going to potentially increase the amount of exposure that they have. That's how it works. So, regardless of the settlement of these lawsuits, it is a fact that the insurance company dropped the Henry County shares, right? Travers dropped them because there was a substantial uh increase in risk. And then the current current insurance company has put all these stipulations and extra fees and all this other kind of like. So, regardless of what he may say, the fact of the matter is, and you can look it up, is that the insurance companies have determined that Henry County under Sheriff Sprohls is a high risk. And I think that's a horrible idea to vote for Sheriff Sprohl. To continue to be sheriff. Horrible idea.

How Tort Notices Really Work

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Then he goes on to talk about how tort claims work. Um let's listen to him explain a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Let me explain how tort notices work. Um, you can file a tort notice. So a tort notice is it's required to file uh before you file a lawsuit. You've got to give the agency a heads up basically, hey, we're we're gonna follow, we intend to file a lawsuit on this, and here's our claim, and here is what we want. Um so so here is the really warped um uh setup that I that I think our our county is is starting to change. And again, we should have done this a long time ago, got ahead of the curveball, but we're not really um we're not really um big on being proactive. Uh I said that four years ago, just reactive, you know, when the fire's burning under your nose, then you have to do something. Um so but but the you can file a tort notice for for that there is no requirement for any truth to be in it at all. And um let me let me let me talk about the the beanbag incident, the infamous beanbag incident. Um the and and and I'm I'm on topic here with the insurance. Um the the FBI investigated that thoroughly. The FBI said no wrong done.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

A lot of so going back to this famous, what it calls, a famous beanbag incident, and the FBI said this. I don't know if the FBI put out a public statement saying that no wrong done or anything like that, but I do know that they settled the case. So whether they think they did anything wrong or not, they went ahead and they settled the case. So obviously, you know, the sheriff is entitled to his own, you know, uh belief of no wrong done or you know, no wrong done because no one that he didn't get arrested or anything like that for doing anything wrong. But we know that the case settled. So once again, here it is. I don't think it's something to be happy about that you're getting all this litigation, regardless of how it turns out, right? Now, if the litigation was turning out in your favor, then that would be something to be happy about. Like, you know, when he talks about, well, no truth has to be in any of these notice of tort claims. Well, if there's no truth in any of these tort claims, there's no reason for the insurance companies to settle because it's all lies, right? Well, there's truth in what these people are putting in those notices of tort claims. There's truth in it. Now, this is the reason why I felt a little bit um why people were talking about, hey, you know, there's a video out there where he's referring to you and all that kind of stuff like that. Well, here it is,

Answering The Personal Attacks

SPEAKER_01 6:49

right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

As you know, I said that that we have we have had one more uh lawsuit or court notice in our three years than the previous three years had. Only one. The vast majority of our court notices are being filed from Martin Nicholson, the attorney that spent 12 years in prison for manslaughter. He shot two people, killed one of them. And if you read up on that case, it's it's it's widely widely known. If you read up on that case, nine of the jurors wanted to convict him for murder and give him 56 years, but three of them only wanted manslaughter, so they agreed to manslaughter. That attorney, I didn't know him from Adam. I don't know that guy from Adam. And and uh apparently he's Chris Bilbury's buddy.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Well f so so once again, you know, he he he's calling he says he doesn't know me, but apparently I'm Chris Bilberry's buddy. And the only reason why he thinks I'm Chris Bilberry's buddy is because I talk about things that he doesn't like, and then Chris Billbury talks about things he doesn't like. That's it. And then him trying to uh drum up my past like this is some you know secret or that makes me non-credible is preposterous. I mean, it's just ridiculous because if he knows anything about me, it should. I mean, he he went back all that time, and I don't know, maybe he talked to some jurors or something like that, saying, oh, nine of them wanted to do this, blah, blah, blah. I I you know, I you know I don't know where he's got all that information. But regardless, right? The fact of the matter is, we're talking about right here and now. And right here and now, he is a sheriff and he's causing destruction in Henry County because multiple people have talked about the abuse that they've suffered at the hands of the sheriff or his deputies. The here and now.

The Ambulance Chaser Label

SPEAKER_00 8:57

From day one when I took office, that attorney, I I I call that type of attorney an ambulance chasing attorney.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Um, and and so he says that attorney, I'm assuming he's referring to me, calling me an ambulance chaser. Let me tell you something. I ain't chased an ambulance a day in my life. Now, what has happened is people that believe they were suffering from abuse in Henry County and needed an ambulance because of his actions chased after me and came to me asking for help. That's the reality. People came to me asking for help. I didn't go out there seeking people. And had he not done what he did, people would never contacted me. I didn't go out there and say, oh, people go out there and do something so the sheriff can't abuse you or violate your rights, so then we'll have some. I didn't tell him to get on TV and talk about court. I didn't tell him to shoot the guy with the beanbag. I didn't tell him to do any of that. You know? I didn't tell him to sit up there and try to get the police officer fired. Officer Humphreys fired. Didn't tell him to do that. Didn't tell him to sit up there and harass the people on the school bus. You know what I'm saying? These cases ain't settled because of his actions. They do came to me. So, and then he talked about posting they he thinks that him saying, Oh, I have the wrong person on there. Yeah, I did. Doesn't take away the content of what I was saying, because I don't know him. Like I said, he doesn't know me.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Something has got to be done uh legislatively about this because uh it's just it is it is amazing. So the insurance company, they'll say, Oh, well, we you know, this guy's asking for a million dollars. We can just write him a check for 15,000 and he'll go away. And that's what they do.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

So now he tried to explain to you about a tort claim and how that tort claim knows

Lawsuit Money, Caps, And Mediation

SPEAKER_01 11:12

where. Let me tell you a little bit about how the process of lawsuits work. Okay? First of all, every lawsuit that's ever filed, people always ask for a lot of money. More money than they even think they'll get. And the opposing party, the defendant in the case, if they do make any offer, it is very, very small. And when they end up going to mediation, they meet somewhere in the middle. Right? Now, sometimes it is six figures, sometimes it's five figures, sometimes four figures, sometimes a junction. There's all of kind of ways that things can be settled. But when you initially file that lawsuit, you're asking for the maximum. In Indiana, if it's if it's state court, the cap is $700,000. So if there's a state court lawsuit, it's $700,000. That's the cap. So I'm assuming the case he's talking about must have been some federal court case that the person was asking for a million dollars, because in Indiana, you can only the cap is $700,000. So I'm not sure exactly what case he's talking about, but once again, if he did not engage in these actions, they would not be settling what he said uh, you know, using his example of $15,000. Well, you sell 10 cases for $15,000, it's $150,000 out of the county's pocket. And it makes the insurance companies raise the insurance because they recognize insuring this company in this county with him as sheriff, that's a horrible idea. They recognize that. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it. We know how insurance companies work. If the risk is high, it's gonna make your premiums high. Think about car insurance. If you're out there driving recklessly, causing accidents, and you got tickets and all that kind of stuff, then your insurance is probably gonna be higher than someone that doesn't have that. That's how it works.

Insurance Costs And Voting Advice

SPEAKER_01 13:24

So I don't think it is something to brag about to say that, oh, we're only selling these cases for X, Y, and Z and all that. What would be better, I think, for Henry County if there were not all these lawsuits. That would be better. So I hope that when people go out to vote in the election in Henry County that they do not vote for Sheriff John Strolls. They do not vote for Sheriff John Strolls. And he gets elected, hopefully he will do better. But there are a lot of people that are running for office in Henry County to run for that sheriff's office. And there are people that I think are better qualified than him. One of them being Jim Nicholson. Not because the last name Nicholson, but because I've known him for years, I think he's better qualified. Also, you have someone on the Democratic ticket. Officer Dean. These two individuals here, one Democrat, one Republican, they seem like they have a lot more experience, a lot more training, and would be better for Henry County than Sheriff John Spralls. That's your nickel's nugget of the day. Please be sure to like and subscribe.