In one of the more unusual Iowa personal injury settlements in quite a while, a Cedar Falls woman was awarded $35,000 for a thumb injury she suffered from a police officer during a fight at a 2003 junior high football game. Tracey Toles had claimed that officer Joel Oltrogge grabbed her thumb and twisted her arm around her back as she responded to the fight on the field. Specifically, a WCFCourier.com story detailed that Toles said she went on the field to see why an officer had pinned her daughter on the ground with his knee in her back during the fight.  That’s when Toles said Oltrogge violated her Constitutional Rights by excessive use of force.

This incident occurred during a September 2003 game between Waterloo Central Middle School and Holmes Junior High at the Holmes football field in Cedar Falls. A fight broke out during the fourth quarter of that game when someone in the stands came onto the field and confronted a Holmes player. Subsequent fights broke out on the field and in the stands. Toles alleged that an officer took her daughter Danaila to the ground, and that she went onto the field to see why her daughter was being arrested. Toles added that she would later have surgery on the thumb which Oltrogge grabbed.

Toles and her Iowa personal injury attorney first sued both the city of Cedar Falls and Oltrogge. However, the city appealed to be removed from the case, and its wish was granted. However, its attorney Bruce Gottman continued to represent Oltrogge and later agreed to this Iowa personal injury settlement. The city will pick up the bill of this settlement for Oltrogge, who is no longer with the force after being fired in September 2006 for violating the city uniform allowance policy.