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Palm Bay, FL -- This morning, The Palm Bayer reported that the federal lawsuit filed by the estate of Jeffery W. Pedersen against the City of Palm Bay settled with the terms sealed. We were wrong. The document that proves it was sitting in the city attorney’s office the whole time.
After publication, the city attorney’s office provided The Palm Bayer with the settlement agreement. It was not on the public docket. We are publishing what it says.
What We Reported and Why
The original article documented a federal civil rights lawsuit arising from a September 25, 2020 incident in which Palm Bay police officers tased and restrained Pedersen during a mental health crisis. Sgt. Jessie Eakin overrode a Baker Act determination made by officers on scene and ordered Pedersen arrested instead. Pedersen was transported to the Brevard County Jail, where corrections officers pepper-sprayed him while he was handcuffed. He went limp. He spent 16 days in the hospital after being admitted to the ICU. He died after the lawsuit was filed.
The case, 6:24-cv-02250, was dismissed with prejudice by Judge Paul G. Byron on February 25, 2026, following a notice of settlement. Document 99 on the PACER docket, filed two days later, referenced a sealed document under Local Rule 1.11(e) of the Middle District of Florida. That rule governs when sealed case materials are unsealed. We concluded the settlement amount was sealed and reported it that way.
The city attorney’s office had previously declined to release executive session transcripts related to active litigation, stating that documents would not be provided until cases were fully resolved. When the Pedersen case was dismissed with prejudice, The Palm Bayer filed a public records request under Chapter 119 and received the executive session transcript. That release signaled, by the city attorney’s own standard, that the matter was closed. We wrote the article after receiving those transcripts, using every document available on the public record. There was no indication that a settlement agreement existed outside the court docket.
The inference was reasonable. Section 1983 civil rights cases involving a death in custody almost always involve payment. The city had authorized $140,460 in defense costs through trial and carried $5 million in excess coverage through the Florida Municipal Insurance Trust. Dismissed with prejudice after a settlement notice is the standard pattern for a paid resolution. We stated the assumption in the article and made it anyway.
The assumption was wrong.
What the City Attorney’s Office Sent Us
The settlement agreement is six pages. It was not filed on the public docket. According to the document’s signature page, only Jeffery R. Pedersen, the plaintiff, had signed it as of today, March 12, 2026. The signature lines for the defense remain blank. The document is unexecuted on the defense side.
The terms are a walk-away. Here is the operative language from Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 3 of the agreement:
“DEFENDANTS agree not to seek an award of fees or costs from PLAINTIFF, which PLAINTIFF acknowledges is full and fair consideration, and in exchange, PLAINTIFF does hereby release and forever discharge DEFENDANTS...”
“PLAINTIFF and DEFENDANTS shall be responsible for payment of all of their respective attorneys’ fees and costs in this matter.”
No money changed hands. The city did not pay the estate. The estate did not pay the city. Each side absorbs its own legal bills.
[Settlement Agreement and Release, Case 6:24-cv-02250-PGB-LHP. Provided by the City Attorney’s Office, City of Palm Bay. March 8, 2026. Not filed on the public docket. PDF embed.]
This is unusual. Civil rights death-in-custody cases that go the distance almost never close this way. We do not have an explanation on the record for why a walk-away was the outcome here. We are not speculating. We are reporting what the document says.
What This Means for Taxpayers
Palm Bay taxpayers paid for lawyers. They did not pay a settlement.
The city’s $140,460 defense budget, authorized in executive session on February 27, 2025, covered the case through trial. That figure fell within the city’s $200,000 self-insured retention. The $5 million excess coverage layer through FMIT was never triggered.
The defense spending is public record through the executive session transcript The Palm Bayer obtained via public records request under Chapter 119. The settlement terms are now also public, through this article.
Why We’re Publishing This
The city attorney’s office read our article and sent us a document that was not on the public docket. That is how this is supposed to work. The Palm Bayer is being read by the people it covers, and they are responding. That matters.
We got the settlement terms wrong. We made a reasonable inference and it did not hold. The record should reflect what the document actually says.
Everything in the original article about the incident itself, the Baker Act override, the tasing, Pedersen’s death, the executive session, and the defense budget, stands. Only the settlement terms are corrected here.
If you read the original article, read this one. If you shared the original, share this one too.
All factual claims about the September 2020 incident are drawn from the plaintiff’s court filings. No court ruled on the merits of any claim. The case settled before trial.
Sources
Palm Bay: A Man in Crisis Was Arrested Instead of Hospitalized. He Died. The Case Just Settled. (The Palm Bayer, original article)
Settlement Agreement and Release, Case 6:24-cv-02250-PGB-LHP, provided by the City Attorney’s Office, City of Palm Bay (March 8, 2026; not on public docket)
PACER Docket, Case 6:24-cv-02250-PGB-LHP, Doc. 99: Notice of Local Rule 1.11(e) re seal expiration (February 27, 2026)
PACER Docket, Case 6:24-cv-02250-PGB-LHP, Doc. 97: Order of Dismissal with Prejudice (February 25, 2026, Judge Paul G. Byron)
Executive Session Transcript, Palm Bay City Council, February 27, 2025 (obtained via F.S. 119 public records request, March 9, 2026)
