Sarah Grady

Civil-Rights Verdicts and Appellate Results

Sarah Grady represents people in jail and prison civil-rights, sexual-assault, medical-care, excessive-force, and wrongful-death matters. Her work includes an $11.5 million verdict affirmed by the en banc Seventh Circuit, a $4.35 million federal verdict in Illinois, and a $2.38 million Nevada settlement.

The $11.5 Million Polk County Verdict

J.K.J. and M.J.J. were held intermittently at the Polk County Jail in northwest Wisconsin between 2011 and 2014. Darryl Christensen had worked there as a correctional officer for nineteen years. He began with comments about the women’s bodies, escalated to physical contact, and repeatedly assaulted them over roughly three years.

J.K.J. testified that during one two-month period in 2012 Christensen demanded sexual contact whenever he was on duty. M.J.J. estimated that he had sexual contact with her twenty-five to seventy-five times. He chose hidden areas, controlled access, and told both women that disclosure would cost him his job and family. They described shame, fear of retaliation, and doubt that anyone would believe them.

An investigator from another county eventually reported an allegation involving Christensen. Polk County opened an internal investigation; he resigned when confronted. A criminal investigation led state authorities to J.K.J. and M.J.J. Christensen later pleaded guilty and received a thirty-year prison sentence.

Grady, Steve Art, and co-counsel brought the women’s civil claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the county itself had acted with deliberate indifference by failing to prevent and detect sexual abuse inside a jail where nearly every route to safety ran through the staff.

A prisoner generally had to report through one of twenty-seven jail employees, often a colleague of the accused guard. A jail-operations expert proposed a confidential lockbox, direct reporting instructions, training on signs of abuse, careful work assignments, and a coordinator for federal rape-prevention standards. The jury also heard evidence of a prior warning involving another officer, limited discipline, accepted sexualized talk, hidden work assignments, and the absence of resulting policy or training changes.

After a five-day trial, the jury found the officer and Polk County liable. Each plaintiff received $2 million in compensatory damages and $3.75 million in punitive damages, for a combined $11.5 million.

After a divided Seventh Circuit panel left only the judgment against the officer in place, Grady and the appellate team obtained rehearing before the full court. On May 15, 2020, the en banc Seventh Circuit affirmed the verdicts against both defendants, holding that the jury could find Polk County had notice of sexual misconduct, deliberately failed to respond to an obvious risk, and maintained policy and training deficiencies causally connected to the abuse. The question was whether the proof permitted the jury to find a county choice rather than merely an officer’s concealed crime; the en banc court held that it did.

Polk County petitioned the Supreme Court for review. Grady and the appellate team opposed the petition, and the Court denied certiorari on January 11, 2021.

The $4.35 Million Metcalf Verdict

Grady and Howard Kaplan tried Haley Metcalf’s federal civil-rights action with other members of their firm. The case concerned repeated warnings about a cell assignment at Logan Correctional Center, prisoner classification, the placement of high-risk prisoners in the general population, and the adequacy of corresponding safety measures. The alleged assailant had accumulated hundreds of disciplinary infractions but was classified as low aggression and placed in Metcalf’s cell.

On February 2, 2024, after two weeks of trial, the jury awarded $2 million in compensatory damages and $2.35 million in punitive damages against several officials, for a total of $4.35 million. The district-court docket closed in May 2025 after the post-trial proceedings concluded.

Haley Metcalf’s action arose from Logan Correctional Center in Illinois. She alleged that a cellmate with a documented history of violence sexually harassed and threatened her for weeks. Metcalf reported the danger repeatedly. Officials did not separate the women before the cellmate assaulted her in February 2017, causing injuries that required surgery and lasting psychological harm.

The $2.38 Million Farah Settlement

Grady represented the relatives of Nicholas Farah in a federal excessive-force, wrongful-death, and negligence action arising from restraint procedures at the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas.

The January 2022 settlement included $1.89 million from the police department and $490,000 in insurance proceeds, totaling $2.38 million.

Nicholas Farah, a thirty-six-year-old father from Wisconsin, was arrested on a trespassing charge during a Las Vegas trip in March 2019. At the Clark County Detention Center, officers strapped him into a restraint chair. Jail video showed officers pressing his head toward his knees for about seventy-five seconds while changing his handcuffs. He was unresponsive when they returned him upright and died at a hospital soon afterward.

The Clark County coroner ruled the death a homicide caused by asphyxia during restraint procedures. Grady’s civil representation focused the video, restraint method, officer conduct, medical evidence, and jail procedures into a wrongful-death record capable of supporting substantial compensation for Farah’s family.

After the settlement, Grady said there should be a price for dehumanizing people and insisted that Farah be remembered as a father, son, and brother.

Practice and Education

Grady is a partner and co-founder of Kaplan & Grady in Chicago. She earned degrees from the University of Iowa and Northwestern University School of Law. Her practice includes jail and prison civil rights, sexual assault, medical care, wrongful death, trials, and appeals.