Shilo Sanders and his lawyers have been fighting two different court battles in recent months, both with high stakes for the University of Colorado football star:
∎ In Colorado bankruptcy court, they are trying to free you from $11 Million Debt He Owes for Allegedly Assaulting and Injuring a Man when he was 15 years old in Dallas in 2015.
∎ In Texas state court, they are also trying to have many old documents relating to his youth protected from public view, despite the fact that these records may be relevant to his public bankruptcy case, now as an adult, at 24 years.
“There is no basis or justification under Texas state law or under the Bankruptcy Code or Bankruptcy Rules for opening such materials relating to when Sanders was a minor simply because Sanders had reached the age of majority,” Sanders’ attorneys wrote in court. filing in June.
His lawyers have even called a hearing in Dallas next week to argue why the court should seal hundreds of pages of court records related to his days as a minor.
In the bigger picture, it highlights the strange circumstances at play in how Sanders, son of Colorado coach Deion Sanders, went broke as a young man because of what he allegedly did when he was in the ninth grade at a Dallas high school. Legal experts describe this as an oddity in a justice system that generally aims to not let young people’s mistakes ruin someone’s life.
But in this case, the law allowed a 40-year-old man to sue a 16-year-old boy (Sanders) in civil court in 2016 because of what Sanders allegedly did to the man a year earlier, when Sanders was 15.
The law also allowed the same civil court to hold Sanders accountable for what he allegedly did at age 15 — issuing an $11.89 million default judgment against him that bankrupted him last year at age 23.
See why and what sets the case apart.
Why did the case get to this point if Shilo Sanders was a minor?
The case stems from an incident that occurred in September 2015, when Shilo Sanders allegedly assaulted and caused permanent injury to a security guard, John Darjean, who was trying to confiscate his phone at school. Darjean sued Sanders and his parents in 2016, seeking compensation for his injuries. But Sanders’ parents ended up being removed from the case. Shilo wasn’t there. When he entered his freshman year of college in South Carolina in 2019, he was the only remaining defendant in the case, at age 19.
So when the case finally went to trial in Dallas in 2022, Shilo didn’t show up to defend himself in court after dropping his lawyers from the case in 2020.
As a result, the court issued a default judgment against him for $11.89 million – a debt Darjean is owed. still trying to charge him.
In Darjean’s view, Shilo simply owes him what he did under laws designed to address civil wrongs – or wrongdoing – in civil courts. This is quite different from criminal courts, where children generally have more privacy and leniency than adults.
“Minors are liable for torts just like adults,” said Meredith Duncan, a law professor at the University of Houston. “This is true in most states. The plaintiff in this case (Darjean) is suing Shilo for committing a wrongful act (a civil wrong) and seeking to hold him civilly liable (for monetary damages). Unlike the criminal justice system, on the civil side, being a minor at the time of committing an unlawful act does not exempt anyone from liability. Typically, the practical difficulty in suing a minor for tort liability is that most minors do not have money.”
The default judgment led Shilo Sanders to declare bankruptcy last October. His goal in bankruptcy court is to pay off the debt so he can “start fresh, free from the oppressive burden of his debts,” according to his lawyers.
Sanders claimed that Darjean was the aggressor, not him, although it may be too late to litigate this after losing the trial on the matter.
How money differentiates this case
Deion Sanders has previously portrayed this case as a money grab by Darjean. However, Darjean disputes any notion that he is pursuing Shilo Sanders simply because of the wealth of Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders. Darjean noted how multiple investigations evaluated the evidence in the case and ended up favoring him, including by police, workers’ compensation authorities and Dallas civil court.
Court records filed by Darjean’s attorneys also noted that Shilo Sanders was admitted to a Dallas County Juvenile Department center a day later after another incident at the school.
“I would go after anyone who attacked me,” Darjean told USA TODAY Sports in a recent interview. “I don’t care who it was.”
It might have been harder for him to find lawyers to fight for his rights in this case if Shilo Sanders didn’t come from a wealthy family. Darjean said his lawyers are working on the case on a contingency basis – which generally means they receive part of any settlement or debt recovery.
These lawyers are fighting Shilo’s efforts to discharge his debt in bankruptcy court because they want to collect it. If it is not overturned by the bankruptcy court, they could continue to pursue debt collection efforts against him in the future, including any future earnings from the NFL.
This is one of the reasons why the case is rare. It is often not worth filing a civil case against minors because they often do not have the means to pay any judgment that may result from it.
“This case is unique in many ways, including the fact that the defendant’s family has significantly more resources than the average person,” said Jonathan Todres, a law professor at Georgia State and an expert on children’s rights.
Meanwhile, Darjean said he won’t stop fighting until he gets his due. His lawyers have also suggested in court filings that Shilo is hiding assets to prevent them from being sold to pay his debt – allegations denied by Shilo’s lawyers. Lawyers involved in the case declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
What has happened to Shilo Sanders so far?
Shilo Sanders is a graduate student at Colorado and was the team’s leading tackler in 2023. But he is entering his final college season in Boulder with legal and financial problems unusual for college football players.
In March, he underwent a property inspection to account for his assets, according to documents filed in the case. He provided the bankruptcy trustee overseeing the case with bank statements, information about his business operations and documents relating to his vehicles.
“The trustee continues to review the documents to determine whether any additional documents are necessary for the trustee’s administration of the estate,” his attorney said in a June 27 court filing.
His non-exempt assets could be sold to pay creditors at least part of what he owes them, but his biggest creditor – Darjean – suspects he is hiding assets and wants to avoid the court’s decision being overturned on the basis that having been caused by an “intentional and malicious” injury.
To represent his interests, Shilo Sanders has lawyers working for him in Colorado, Washington DC and Texas, where they are asking the court to seal records relating to his youth.
Why wasn’t Shilo Sanders protected from prosecution when he was a minor?
It arises from the differences between civil courts and the criminal justice system, where children are treated differently as minors.
“The idea behind this was that children are different from adults and deserve the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and be supported in their development, rather than being penalized indefinitely for mistakes,” said Georgia State’s Todres.
In contrast, in civil court, the child’s freedom is not at stake as it may be in the criminal justice system. Instead, it is essentially about determining liability for recovery of monetary damages. In Darjean’s opinion, the age of his alleged attacker should not matter if he suffered serious injuries and proved who was responsible for them in court.
He sought to recover from those injuries, and the court concluded that Shilo Sanders “in fact caused physical harm and injury to John Darjean by assaulting him,” according to the judge’s 2022 signed “findings of fact.”
The court’s judgment against Sanders included $3 million for Darjean’s future physical disabilities and $2 million for future medical care. Shilo Sanders’ lawyers said in court papers that he does not have the money to pay the sentence and should be released. It will soon be up to the court to decide whether he should remain in prison for this.
In general, the broader civil legal system, beyond this case, has a “difficult balancing act to do,” Todres said. “We want to ensure that injured individuals receive compensation when they are entitled to it so they can fully recover, but we do not want to unduly penalize a child and burden them with a lifetime of debt because of a decision made when they were a child. Part of the challenge is that our legal system’s primary solution to injuries is monetary compensation.”
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: Shilo Sanders Bankruptcy Case: Alleged Actions on Young Led to Debt
