After a landlord evicted a mother and her four children without a court order, then destroyed all of their belongings, a jury in Hamilton County Circuit Court awarded them $860,000.

Michael Scrivani was ordered to pay $110,000 to Veronica Suttles and her children as compensation for their emotional distress and the "malicious destruction of their property."

It then awarded $750,000 to Ms. Suttles as punitive damages.

"The jury decided that Mr. Scrivani had taken away the memories of this family,” said Whitney Durand, attorney for the Suttles family. “They lost not only their clothes and furnishings but suffered severe emotional distress according to the testimony of psychologist Sandra Kilpatrick.”

He also said, “The family asked the jury to send a message to other landlords and tenants, as well as the legal community, that intentional and malicious conduct would not be tolerated.”

According to the complaint, the Suttles family lived, before their eviction, in a one-story, single-family residence at 4319 10th Ave.

Mr. Scrivani claimed she was in default and refused to accept rent payments for April and May 2005. Earlier, in March 2005, he removed the refrigerator and stove and threw out her food that had been in the refrigerator, saying that she should get a cooler.

On May 21, 2005, the Suttles were preparing to go to a ceremony where a cousin was graduating from Howard High School. They had been to visit Ms. Suttles’ sister overnight. The family was planning to change clothes at the 10th Avenue residence. Upon arriving at the residence, Ms. Suttles learned that a locked front door had been opened and that two men were inside the house.

Ms. Suttles and her children saw that kitchen items, such as food, canned goods, pans, curtains, Venetian blinds, food, utensils, and a coffee pot, were on the floors of the house. The living room was empty except for a rolled-up rug. Items previously placed in a closet, and pictures previously hung on a wall, were on the living room floor. The housing for an entertainment center lay on the floor, but the audio and video equipment was missing from it. Clothes were on one of the bedroom floors. A bunk bed for the children was missing. No clothes were in a closet used by Ms. Suttles.

Mattresses were gone, as were curtains on bedroom windows. Venetian blinds had been taken off all windows of the house. The Suttles family noticed that virtually everything inside the house had been placed in a large dumpster in the back yard, their attorney said.

When police officers responded to a call from Ms. Suttles, a representative of Mr. Scrivani showed them a writing that purported to be an eviction notice from Chattanooga’s City Court, but was a forgery, attorney Durand said. Among other things, it threatened that Ms. Suttles “will be legally removed by officers, and your possessions will become the property” of Mr. Scrivani.

One of the police officers then said that the Suttles family had to leave. He warned that they could be arrested for trespassing.

Dr. Kilpatrick testified that each of the five members of the Suttles family had post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder; three of the children had separation anxiety disorder; Ms. Suttles had stress-related physiological response; and one of the children had a disruptive behavior disorder.