The city of Portland has settled for $10,000 a federal lawsuit filed against a police officer by a man who suffered a broken rib during an arrest. Under the agreement, the man changed his claim to say he was hurt accidentally, not from excessive force.

Eric Lund of Windham agreed to dismiss the lawsuit against Officer Eric McCusker on Friday in U.S. District Court in Portland in exchange for the one-time payment from the city. Jury selection in the civil trial had been scheduled for Monday.

“While the city believes that a jury would have concluded that Mr. Lund was not injured (even accidentally) by Officer McCusker, the payment made to Mr. Lund was a reasonable compromise of a doubtful and disputed claim and avoided the necessity of protracted and expensive litigation,” Jessica Grondin, a spokeswoman for the city, said in a written statement.

Lund was initially one of two men who filed an excessive-force lawsuit against McCusker, claiming that the officer threatened them and injured them after finding them hiding in tall grass near the railroad tracks off Canco Road on Sept. 9, 2012. The second man, Jeffrey Staples of Standish, later withdrew his accusations and dropped out of the lawsuit, according to court records.

McCusker and another officer tracked Lund and Staples using a police dog after getting a call around 10:30 p.m. from a security officer at Central Maine Power Co. who reported two men walking along the fence line behind the power company’s storage yard at 162 Canco Road, according to the lawsuit.

Lund and Staples were charged in the incident with possession of burglary tools, though they deny in the lawsuit that they were there with any intent to commit a burglary.

Lund contended that McCusker broke his rib while he was on the ground by kneeing him in the back. Staples initially claimed that McCusker punched him in the face, but later dropped that claim.

Staples was held after his arrest on a probation violation charge and ultimately pleaded guilty to possession of burglary tools for a sentence of time he had already served. Lund pleaded not guilty to the charge against him and the case was dismissed because of insufficient evidence.

McCusker was cleared of any wrongdoing in the arrests after an investigation by the Portland Police Department in response to an administrative complaint filed by the men. McCusker remains on the city police force in good standing.

Lund’s attorney, Robert Levine, said he expected that the excessive-force case would go to trial and did not expect a settlement offer until an unexpected event last month.

On April 22, Portland police arrested Staples again, on a charge of driving with a suspended license. Lund was in the passenger seat when officers stopped the car. Police saw that the back seat of the car was filled with a spool of copper wire, loose copper pieces, a cut-off catalytic converter, a Milwaukee Sawzall tool and wire cutters.

Levine said the evidence in the car had nothing to do with how Lund was injured in 2012, but it could have been used to undercut his credibility before a jury. So when the city offered to settle rather than go to trial, Lund agreed to say he was injured accidentally.

“We concluded it was in (Lund’s) best interest. It didn’t much matter to us what we called it as long as we got paid,” Levine said. “He’s not thrilled, but there is some vindication in this.”

McCusker’s attorney, Michael Cunniff, said Lund agreed in the settlement to drop all accusations against the officer and accepted that the injury was an accident.

“Officer McCusker disputes that he was responsible for the accidental injury, and it is likely that a jury would have concluded that Mr. Lund sustained a fractured rib when landing himself on the ground in an effort to conceal himself from arresting police officers,” Cunniff said. “Although Officer McCusker takes the position that he was not responsible for even an accidental injury to Mr. Lund, it is my understanding that the city elected to resolve the reclassified accidental injury by the same sort of payment that it would pay to resolve any type of accidental injury as part of a cost benefit analysis.”