A federal appeals court has upheld a finding that an FBI agent acted negligently when he fatally shot a bound and blindfolded hostage through a window during a 2018 rescue operation near Houston, but the same ruling trims the amount of money the man's family will ultimately collect. Ulises Valladares was killed on Jan. 24, 2018, after armed intruders broke into his home in Conroe, tied up Valladares and his 12-year-old son, and dragged Valladares away as part of a kidnapping scheme.
A Hostage Rescue Gone Fatally Wrong
According to the court record from courtlistener.com, the kidnappers took Valladares to Houston and demanded ransom, claiming his brother owed them money. FBI Special Agents Jeffrey Hawkins and Gavin Lappe were posted on the south side of the house during the rescue attempt, and Lappe fired a shot through a window that struck Valladares, who died shortly afterward. As reported by KHOU 11, Valladares was tied up and blindfolded at the moment he was shot.
Lappe told investigators afterward that the person inside the house had grabbed his gun, stating “I shot” and “he grabbed my gun,” per the court record. But the district court determined that Valladares was not threatening officers when he was shot and had never been in contact with Lappe's weapon, KHOU 11 reported, citing the judge's findings. The district court went further, ruling that Lappe acted negligently, or even grossly negligently, in shooting the silhouette in the window without knowing who he was shooting and without any threat directed at him or another agent.
Appeals Court Leaves Negligence Finding Intact
The Fifth Circuit's Oct. 21 ruling affirmed the government's liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act, leaving the negligence finding against Lappe untouched. The appellate panel found that the district court's negligence finding was not clearly erroneous, according to a case summary published by tadbartlett.substack.com. The district court had also determined that the shots Lappe fired were the sole cause of Valladares' death.
The district court awarded $611,000 to Valladares' mother and $1.3 million to his son, totaling $1.911 million in damages, plus $475,000 in attorney fees before the appeal.
Attorney Fees Must Come Out of the Award, Not On Top of It
While the Fifth Circuit affirmed liability, it reversed and remanded the case on the separate questions of damages and attorney fees. The court reversed an amended judgment that had increased the damages award by $475,000 to cover attorney fees, directing the lower court instead to enter the original award, per the same Substack account. The panel's reasoning rests on a provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act limiting attorney fees to 25% of the total damages award and requiring that those fees be carved out of the award rather than added on top of it.
The case now returns to the trial judge, who must enter a corrected damages award in line with the appellate ruling, according to KHOU 11's reporting. The station's report notes the practical effect: the total amount of money reaching Valladares' family will be smaller once attorney fees are subtracted from the award rather than paid separately by the government.
The dispute over Lappe's account versus the physical evidence had already shaped the case well before this week's ruling. A Houston Police Department investigation found that Lappe's account of the shooting did not match the evidence, KHOU 11 reported, and the appellate record reflects repeated rejection by the courts of any suggestion that Valladares grabbed Lappe's rifle or posed a threat, as Houston Landing has reported.
The federal government had appealed the original damages decision, and this week's ruling marks the latest turn in a case that has moved from the 2018 hostage rescue and shooting through a district-court liability finding to this appellate remand on the dollar amounts. Attorneys representing Valladares' family and community groups were set to hold a news conference Friday morning in Houston, according to KHOU 11's report.
