29-4604. Recovery of damages; determination of amount; restrictions.

(1) A claimant under the Nebraska Claims for Wrongful Conviction and Imprisonment Act shall recover damages found to proximately result from the wrongful conviction and that have been proved based upon a preponderance of the evidence.

(2) The following costs shall not offset damages:

(a) Costs of imprisonment; and

(b) Value of any care or education provided to the claimant while he or she was imprisoned.

(3) No damages shall be payable to the claimant for any period of time during which he or she was concurrently imprisoned for any unrelated criminal offense.

(4) In no case shall damages awarded under the act exceed five hundred thousand dollars per claimant per occurrence.

(5) A claimant's cause of action under the act shall not be assignable and shall not survive the claimant's death.

Source:Laws 2009, LB260, § 4.

Annotations

Where damages are subject to a statutory cap, the determination of damages is a two-stage process which involves an initial factual determination of the actual damages sustained by the injured party and then a legal application of the statutory cap if the actual damages exceed the statutory maximum recoverable amount. Dean v. State, 288 Neb. 530, 849 N.W.2d 138 (2014).