Two federal wrongful death lawsuits brought by family members of a Meigs County, Tennessee, woman who drowned while handcuffed in the back of a deputy's patrol car after it plunged into the Tennessee River have been combined.
Tabitha Marie Colbaugh, also called Tabitha Marie Smith in initial court documents and statements, was in custody in the back of a Meigs County Sheriff's Office patrol car driven by Deputy Robert "R.J." Leonard the night of Feb. 14 when he drove off the end of a boat ramp into the Tennessee River, according to court filings. Both drowned, with Leonard being found downstream from the patrol car. Colbaugh was found dead with her hands cuffed behind her in the back seat.
Initially, Nathan Alexander Smith, Colbaugh's adult son, filed suit seeking $10 million in damages. That filing was followed by a suit by her husband, Kenneth Andrew Colbaugh, as well as the woman's three minor children. After a series of filings seeking to dismiss one, U.S. District Judge Clifton L. Corker ordered the two cases merged since they make similar claims against the same defendants, Meigs County and the estate of the deputy.
The suit contends Leonard, as a county deputy on duty, should have been trained by the county to know his assigned area — including the area where the deadly incident happened — and to refrain from texting while transporting an arrestee in his patrol car.
Leonard's actions reflect a failure in training in his alleged disregard of criminal laws on cellphone use while driving, a lack of knowledge of his patrol area and his disregard for rumble strips on Blythe Ferry Road intended to warn drivers of the upcoming boat ramp into the river, the suit says.
The alleged failure to protect Smith, handcuffed in the locked back seat of the patrol car, while en route to the sheriff's office led to her "tragic and horrible death," the suit states.
The suit contends Leonard's alleged actions and failures to act violated Smith's constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment "to be free from the infliction of physical pain, suffering and death and to not be harmed by the defendants without due process of law," the suit states.
The suit seeks nominal, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees, interest, cost of the suit and any other relief the court deems just.
The last filing in the case Friday was a joint stipulation for the defendants' answer to the consolidated complaint by July 12.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Leonard, 35, a father of five, and Tabitha Colbaugh, a 35-year-old mother of four, died the night of Feb. 14 after Leonard answered a disturbance call on the state Highway 60 bridge over the Tennessee River, where Colbaugh was arrested and transported from the scene, according to authorities. Leonard, who had recently moved to Meigs County from New York, got off track somewhere between the bridge and the Meigs County Jail.
The patrol car had run off the end of Blythe Ferry Road — once a ferry landing now used as a boat ramp — into the Tennessee River, authorities said. Leonard's last communication with his wife was a text that said "arrest," and the last dispatchers heard from him is believed to be the word "water."
State wildlife officers found the patrol car upside down in the river with the front windows rolled down, District Attorney Russell Johnson told media at a news conference in Decatur, Tennessee, after the bodies were found. Colbaugh's body was covered in mud.
A dive team from the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office searched the river using sonar and a remote-controlled vehicle to determine the car found was Leonard's, Hamilton County Sheriff Austin Garrett said during the news conference at the time. The license plate matched, Johnson said.