Lincoln Towing Verdict: Cook County Jury Awards $2.85 Million With Record $1.8 Million Punitive Damages

The Lincoln Towing verdict is $2.85 million: in late October 2026 a Cook County jury found for Jermall Harvey, a Chicago driver who says a Lincoln Towing crew member pointed a gun at his head while he clung to the hood of a moving tow truck in Wicker Park in October 2022. About $1.8 million of the award is punitive damages, which the Jury Verdict Reporter calls the largest reported punitive damages award in Cook County municipal districts, nearly four times the previous record set in 1994.

The verdict was first reported by CWB Chicago and then by the neighborhood blog Uptown Update on October 31, 2026, which quoted the Jury Verdict Reporter's breakdown. For a towing company that has spent a decade fighting its state regulator over its license, the verdict adds a different kind of exposure: a jury finding that the conduct deserved punishment, not just compensation. For the Chicago plaintiffs' bar and for insurers that write garage and commercial auto policies for relocation towers, the more interesting questions are legal ones. How does Illinois let a jury punish a company for what an employee did with a gun? Will any insurer have to pay the punitive share? And what can Lincoln Towing do now?

This article sets out what is known about the verdict, the 2022 incident behind it, the Illinois punitive damages rules that will govern any challenge, and what the result means for towing operators, their insurers and plaintiffs' counsel. Some details, including the exact verdict date, the case number and the defense's response, had not been publicly reported when this article was published and are left out rather than guessed.

How much was the Lincoln Towing verdict?

The jury awarded $2.85 million in total. According to the Jury Verdict Reporter, as quoted by Uptown Update, that is made up of $1,050,000 in compensatory damages and $1,800,000 in punitive damages. CWB Chicago's account, which says nearly two-thirds of the award was punitive, is consistent with that split, and Harvey's trial counsel has separately described the punitive component as $1.8 million.

Component	Amount	Share of total	Source
Compensatory damages	$1,050,000	about 37%	Jury Verdict Reporter, via Uptown Update
Punitive damages	$1,800,000	about 63%	Jury Verdict Reporter; plaintiff's counsel
Total verdict	$2,850,000	100%	CWB Chicago; Uptown Update
Punitive-to-compensatory ratio	about 1.71 : 1	n/a	Calculated from the figures above
Prior Cook County municipal district punitive record (1994)	$467,057	n/a	Uptown Update, citing the Jury Verdict Reporter

The figures are the jury's verdict, not a final judgment. Post-trial motions, any remittitur, statutory interest and an appeal could all change what is ultimately paid.

What happened in the Lincoln Towing gun incident in Wicker Park?

The case arose from a tow on October 12, 2022. Harvey had parked in the lot of a now-closed CVS at 1200 North Ashland Avenue, near Ashland and Division in Wicker Park, and says he had permission and a valid pass to park there. When he saw a Lincoln Towing crew hooking up his car, he ran outside to tell them he was parked legally.

According to his lawsuit, as summarized by CWB Chicago, Harvey stepped in front of the truck in the hope of stopping the tow. When the driver accelerated, Harvey jumped onto the hood. The truck's passenger then pulled out a gun, pointed it at Harvey's head and ordered him off. Chicago police said the passenger told them he had a concealed carry license and was in fear for his life.

NBC Chicago's NBC 5 Responds unit reported in 2023 that surveillance video showed the driver driving away, that Harvey shared his location with a police dispatcher, and that officers tracked and pulled over the red Lincoln Towing truck within minutes. NBC identified the passenger as Timothy Tyler and reported that he was arrested and charged, and that investigators from the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) found he was not a registered towing operator, as state law requires. The ICC also cited the company and sought a refund of the $218 Harvey paid to get his car back, along with potential state fines of $1,500. The outcome of the criminal charge and of the ICC citation has not been reported alongside the verdict.

Is the Lincoln Towing verdict a record?

Yes, within a defined category. The Jury Verdict Reporter, the Chicago-based verdict-reporting service, describes the $1.8 million punitive award as the largest reported punitive damages award in Cook County municipal districts. Uptown Update, quoting the same service, puts the previous record at $467,057 in 1994, which makes the new award about 3.85 times the old one.

The qualifier matters. The record is not a statewide or Cook County-wide punitive damages record; much larger punitive awards have been returned in Illinois courts in product liability and other cases. It is a record for the reporting category the Jury Verdict Reporter uses, and it is notable because cases of this kind, involving a single tow and a single injured person, rarely produce punitive damages at all, let alone seven figures.

Why did the jury award punitive damages against Lincoln Towing?

The jury's reasons are not public in detail, but Illinois law sets a high bar, and the verdict means the jury found it was met. Under Kelsay v. Motorola, Inc., 74 Ill. 2d 172 (1978), and later cases such as Martin v. Heinold Commodities, Inc., 163 Ill. 2d 33 (1994), punitive damages may be awarded when a tort is committed with fraud, actual malice, deliberate violence or oppression, or when the defendant acts willfully or with gross negligence amounting to a wanton disregard of others' rights. Illinois courts describe punitive damages as penal and disfavored, meant to punish and deter rather than compensate.

Harvey's counsel, Yerachmiel Udman of MR.LAW, who tried the case with Sean P. Driscoll of Driscoll Law Group, wrote in a public post that the jury found the conduct showed an actual or deliberate intention to harm. That is counsel's characterization of the verdict, and the verdict form and instructions have not been published. If accurate, it places the case at the top of the Kelsay scale: deliberate violence or oppression, not mere carelessness. A gun pointed at a person's head on a moving vehicle over a disputed tow is the type of conduct that fits that description far more comfortably than the ordinary negligence claims tow operators usually face.

Procedure also mattered. Illinois does not let a plaintiff demand punitive damages in an original complaint. Under 735 ILCS 5/2-604.1, the plaintiff must move to amend after filing and show at a hearing a reasonable likelihood of proving facts at trial sufficient to support a punitive award. The fact that the punitive claim reached the jury means the trial court found that showing was made. And because the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the 1995 tort reform act in Best v. Taylor Machine Works, 179 Ill. 2d 367 (1997), there is no general statutory cap on punitive damages in Illinois.

Can an employer be liable for punitive damages for an employee's conduct in Illinois?

Yes, but only in limited circumstances. Illinois does not impose punitive damages on an employer simply because the employee was acting within the scope of employment. Instead it follows the complicity rule of Restatement (Second) of Agency § 217C, which the Illinois Supreme Court endorsed in Mattyasovszky v. West Towns Bus Co., 61 Ill. 2d 31 (1975), and which the appellate court applied in Kennan v. Checker Taxi Co. (1993) to hold that punitive damages may be awarded against a corporate entity only on evidence of its complicity.

Under § 217C, a principal can be punished for an agent's act only if the principal authorized the act and the way it was done; the agent was unfit and the principal was reckless in employing or retaining the agent; the agent was employed in a managerial capacity and acting within the scope of employment; or the principal or a managerial agent ratified or approved the act.

Those four routes frame the most important unanswered question about this verdict: which one the jury was given. The ICC's finding that the gun-carrying passenger was not a registered operator, and the company's long regulatory history, are the kind of evidence a plaintiff would use to argue reckless hiring or retention, or corporate approval of aggressive tow practices. A defense appeal would be expected to test whether the evidence actually tied the punitive award to company-level fault rather than to the individual crew member alone. The answer also drives the insurance question below.

Will insurance pay the Lincoln Towing punitive damages?

Probably not for punitive damages based on the company's own misconduct, but the answer depends on why the company was held liable. In Beaver v. Country Mutual Insurance Co., 95 Ill. App. 3d 1122 (1981), the Illinois Appellate Court held that public policy prohibits insurance against punitive damages arising from the insured's own misconduct. Later decisions, including Bernier v. Burris, 113 Ill. 2d 219 (1986), and federal cases applying Illinois law, have followed that rule.

Beaver, however, expressly left in place the earlier decision in Scott v. Instant Parking, Inc., 245 N.E.2d 124 (Ill. App. Ct. 1969), which allowed coverage of punitive damages imposed on an employer solely through vicarious liability for an employee's conduct. The irony that the vicarious-liability exception comes from a parking-lot case will not be lost on Chicago practitioners.

The commentary that insurers never cover punitive damages therefore oversimplifies Illinois law. If the punitive award rests on the company's own complicity, such as reckless retention or approval of the conduct, public policy will likely keep it off the insurer's books regardless of policy wording. If any part rests on purely vicarious liability, coverage turns on the policy language, including any express punitive damages exclusion, which Illinois courts generally enforce. Because the complicity rule already requires company-level fault before punitive damages can be imposed on an employer, the room for the vicarious exception in a case like this is narrow.

Compensatory damages are a different matter. The $1,050,000 compensatory award is the type of loss liability insurance is designed to cover, subject to limits, exclusions (including any intentional-acts exclusion) and any reservation of rights the carrier issued.

Can Lincoln Towing appeal the verdict?

Yes. The usual path in Illinois runs through a post-trial motion in the circuit court and then an appeal to the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District.

Step	Rule	What it does
Post-trial motion	735 ILCS 5/2-1202	Due within 30 days after the verdict or judgment; seeks judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial or remittitur, and preserves issues for appeal
Notice of appeal	Ill. S. Ct. Rule 303	Due within 30 days after the ruling on the last pending post-trial motion
Stay of enforcement	Ill. S. Ct. Rule 305	Enforcement of a money judgment is stayed if an appeal bond or other security is filed; practitioners commonly budget about 150% of the judgment to cover interest and costs, and courts may approve less with conditions to prevent dissipation of assets
Post-judgment interest	735 ILCS 5/2-1303(a)	9% per year on the judgment while it is unpaid
Prejudgment interest	735 ILCS 5/2-1303(c)	6% per year in personal injury actions, from the date the action was filed, on damages other than punitive damages, sanctions, statutory fees and costs

Likely defense arguments include whether the evidence met the Kelsay standard as to the company, whether the jury was correctly instructed on complicity, and whether the punitive award is excessive. On excessiveness, the federal due process guideposts from BMW of North America v. Gore (1996) and State Farm v. Campbell (2003) look at reprehensibility, the ratio to compensatory damages and comparable penalties. At about 1.71 to 1, the ratio is well inside the single-digit range State Farm described, and conduct involving a threat of deadly violence sits at the high end of reprehensibility. A ratio challenge alone looks difficult; the stronger defense ground, if there is one, is whether the evidence of company complicity was sufficient.

The prejudgment interest rule also changes settlement math. Because interest under section 2-1303(c) accrues from the filing date on the compensatory share only, the $1.05 million compensatory award will carry several years of 6% interest, while the punitive award will begin to accrue interest only once a judgment is entered.

The ICC backdrop: does Lincoln Towing still have a license?

Lincoln Towing is a relocation tower: it removes vehicles from private lots at the property owner's request. That business is regulated by the ICC under the Illinois Commercial Relocation of Trespassing Vehicles Law, 625 ILCS 5/18a, which licenses relocators, issues employment permits to operators and sets rates.

The company has long been at odds with that regulator. In September 2018 the ICC voted 5-0 to revoke its relocation license, with then-Chairman Brien Sheahan saying the evidence showed Lincoln Towing had not conducted its business with honesty and integrity, even though an administrative law judge had recommended that the company keep its license. Lincoln Towing obtained court orders allowing it to keep operating, and in January 2020 Cook County Circuit Judge Neil Cohen reversed the revocation, finding that the ICC's process had been unfair to the company. Reports at the time noted that the ICC could appeal; the company has continued to operate since.

That history is part of why the 2022 ICC finding about an unregistered operator matters. A licensing regime that requires individual operator permits gives plaintiffs a concrete benchmark for arguing that a relocator knowingly sent unvetted people into confrontations with vehicle owners.

What it means for towing companies, insurers and plaintiffs' counsel

For relocation towers and the property owners who hire them. The verdict is a reminder that the most expensive tow-related claims are not about damaged bumpers. When a confrontation escalates to weapons, Illinois law lets a jury reach the company through hiring, retention, training and ratification evidence. Compliance with operator-permit requirements, written de-escalation and drop-the-car policies, and records of how crews are screened are the documents that will be subpoenaed. Property owners that contract with relocators may also want to review indemnity and additional-insured provisions in light of a punitive award their own insurer may not be able to cover.

For insurers. Carriers writing garage, commercial auto or general liability coverage for towing operators should expect compensatory exposure in this kind of case to be tendered, and punitive exposure to be contested under Beaver. How the verdict form allocates fault between the company and its crew, and what theory of corporate liability was submitted, will decide whether the narrow Scott v. Instant Parking vicarious-liability exception is even in play. Reservation-of-rights letters and any independent-counsel arrangements should account for that split early.

For plaintiffs' counsel. The result shows that small-dollar consumer disputes can support punitive claims when the evidence of deliberate conduct is strong and documented: here, surveillance video, a prompt police stop and a regulator's findings. It also shows the value of the section 2-604.1 motion as a pressure point, and of separating compensatory and punitive figures on the verdict form, since prejudgment interest runs only on the former and insurance usually covers only the former. Collectability is the practical question: with punitive damages generally uninsurable for a company's own misconduct, the punitive share must be collected from the defendant's own assets, which makes the Rule 305 bond and any asset-preservation conditions important.

For the defense bar. The vulnerable point in a verdict like this is usually not the ratio but the bridge between an individual crew member's act and the company's own culpability. Careful jury instructions on the § 217C complicity factors, and a record that separates company policy from an individual's deviation from it, are the levers that matter in post-trial motions and on appeal.

Frequently asked questions

How much was the Lincoln Towing verdict?

A Cook County jury awarded Jermall Harvey $2.85 million against Lincoln Towing in late October 2026, made up of $1,050,000 in compensatory damages and $1,800,000 in punitive damages, according to the Jury Verdict Reporter.

Is the Lincoln Towing punitive damages award a record?

Yes. The Jury Verdict Reporter calls the $1.8 million punitive award the largest reported in Cook County municipal districts, nearly four times the previous record of $467,057 set in 1994. It is not a statewide record.

Why was Lincoln Towing hit with punitive damages?

The case arose from an October 12, 2022 tow in Wicker Park in which, according to the lawsuit, a crew member pointed a gun at Harvey's head while he clung to the hood of the moving tow truck. Illinois allows punitive damages for deliberate violence or oppression, and the plaintiff's counsel says the jury found an actual or deliberate intention to harm.

Will Lincoln Towing's insurance pay the punitive damages?

Likely not to the extent the award rests on the company's own misconduct, because Illinois public policy, under Beaver v. Country Mutual Insurance Co. (1981), bars insuring punitive damages for one's own wrongdoing. Coverage may be possible only for punitive damages imposed purely vicariously, under Scott v. Instant Parking (1969), subject to the policy terms.

Can Lincoln Towing appeal the verdict?

Yes. It can file a post-trial motion within 30 days seeking judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a new trial or remittitur, and then appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, within 30 days of the ruling on that motion. Enforcement is stayed only if it posts an appeal bond or other security under Supreme Court Rule 305.

Does Lincoln Towing still have a license?

Yes, as far as public reporting shows. The ICC revoked its relocation license in 2018, but a Cook County judge reversed that revocation in January 2020, and the company has continued to operate.