A federal jury has refused award damages to a midstate man who claimed he was unjustly arrested and roughed up by two state Game Commission officers.

That verdict, handed down in U.S. Middle District Court this week, caps Michael A. Kern's three-year battle to get financial compensation for what happened on Dec. 2, 2013.

Kern, of Jackson Township, York County, claimed Wildlife Conservation Officers Steven Knickel and Kevin Clouser violated his civil rights when he was forcibly handcuffed during an investigation of a wildlife baiting case on his farm.

In court filings by his lawyer, Christopher A. Ferro, Kern claimed he suffered shoulder and hand injuries that should have equated to damages of $100,000 to $250,000.

The jury awarded him nothing and rejected Kern's excessive force claims against the officers following the trial in the courtroom of Judge John E. Jones III.

Kern claimed the officers summoned him to return to his farm from work after finding a hunter in a deer blind on the property. He said he was forcibly handcuffed after invoking his right not to answer the officers' questions.

Ferro noted that Kern was later acquitted of the game law violations that were lodged against him.

The attorney general's office, which defended the officers, contended in court filings that Kern acted in a "threatening" manner toward Knickel and Clouser. Kern was handcuffed when he refused an order not to talk to the hunter who was on the property because the case was still under investigation, the officers said.

They insisted the force used to cuff Kern was "necessary and reasonable." And, they argued, even though Kern was later acquitted, they didn't violate his civil rights because there was sufficient probable cause of a violation to warrant his arrest.