Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A $320,000 settlement has been reached between the Village of Fowlerville and a man wrongly accused of drunken driving after a Fowlerville police officer badly misread a breath test.

37-year-old Ryohei Akima was a native of Japan who was in Michigan for work in 2020. He blew a 0.02% on the breathalyzer test, but it was mistakenly read by a Fowlerville Police Officer as 0.22% - which would be nearly three times over the state’s blood-alcohol limit.

Charges of operating while intoxicated and operating with a blood alcohol content of .17% or more were filed in 53rd District Court in Howell in February of 2020. Court records show they were dropped the next month after lab results came in.

Last October, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Akima’s lawsuit, alleging a violation of constitutional rights, could proceed against Officer Caitlyn Peca. In a 3-0 opinion, Judge Jane Stranch said a reasonable jury could conclude that the arrest was not supported by probable cause and that the officer was not entitled to qualified immunity. The appeals court said that another officer at the scene testified that the tests were administered incorrectly, which may have affected the results.

The lawsuit was returned to federal court in Detroit for trial or a possible settlement.

An attorney representing Peca, Joseph Seward, claimed that performance on roadside sobriety tests was enough to make an arrest and avoid civil liability in the lawsuit. He said “We're disappointed the courts didn't see it that way”.

Records show that Fowlerville is paying the lawsuit settlement through insurance.

Peca is no longer an officer in Fowlerville.