Stop Betraying Cops by Settling Baseless Lawsuits
Stop Betraying Cops by Settling Baseless Lawsuits
Settling police lawsuits as the cheapest option contradicts the mission
I’ve seen interesting lawsuits. One of my friends shot at a carjacker and was sued by the victim. In another case, a hostage was mistaken for the kidnapper and fatally shot, resulting in an eight-figure settlement shared between two agencies. A pursuit with a tragic outcome in a partner agency caused half of a dozen of my friends to be sanctioned, disciplined, and demoted while their sheriff’s office adopted a ridiculous new restrictive chase policy.
A friend responded to a dispute between a tow truck driver and an intoxicated bar patron. After getting the truck to drop the car, the patron tried to sucker punch the officer and in evading that assault, his defensive response resulted in a critical (self-inflicted) injury to the offender and a nearly seven-figure verdict in federal court.
Most lawsuits against police are unremarkable
Arrests and response to resistance are common and frequent. Many lawsuits are plaintiffs with foggy recollections and Saturday night palsy. Their lawyers work on contingency and know the target award that will get the local government, the deep pockets they are targeting, to settle. The officer has no say in these decisions despite them all being attributed to her or his actions.
Consider the high-profile death cases since 2013 and name a case where deadly force was attributed to police without the failure to obey clear lawful commands, without felony-level violent resistance or where a pronounced morbidity wasn’t present. Freddie Gray, per the video of his arrest, couldn’t even walk to the van.
When the costs are counted, the totals are large and getting larger. The National Police Funding Database found over two billion dollars in settlements in their database which is far from complete or authoritative:
“We identified 217 publicly reported settlements that resulted in policy changes and over $2,340,780,094.00 in monetary compensation to victims.”
The insurance carrier for Ferguson, Missouri paid the family of Michael Brown $1.5 million where no criminal or administrative action was sustained for Officer Darren Wilson. NBC News reported:
“Wilson resigned in November 2014, soon after a St. Louis County grand jury decided not to indict him. The U.S. Department of Justice found no grounds to prosecute Wilson, but the shooting led to a Justice Department investigation that resulted in a consent agreement requiring Ferguson to make significant changes to address racial bias in its police department and municipal court.”
Different assignments and varying risk
According to first-hand testimony, drunks in an entertainment district are funny for no more than two days. Those two days are Monday and Tuesday. For cops working those areas, where there can be nearly a hundred bars within a square mile and action is guaranteed.
Most calls have the potential for at least one arrest. Fights are prevalent and battery on a law enforcement officer cases occur disproportionately. Keeping order in Ybor City and Austin, as well as many other cities, require an entire career’s worth of patience, tolerance, and self-esteem every three months. Other low-key assignments present their own challenges in staying proactive and motivated.
The undue impact on the officer
Our best officers invest in training their minds, informing their tactics, and conditioning their bodies for an event that hopefully will never occur. Fortunately for most officers, it never will. A hallmark of professionalism is the investment, on duty and off duty, to become better intellectually and instinctually prepared for the very worst moment of their life and the lives of others. It is the defining characteristic of what elevates professions from careers.
When an officer is sued, and their governing authority is named simply for their financial capacity, the officer-deputy-agent too often does not get that opportunity to defend themselves. An excellent officer, who does nothing less than an excellent job may get sued several times within a time span of a few years.
Upon a major event, perhaps a completely justified fatal shooting, when the news gets ahold of facts that the officer was sued twice for false arrest and once for excessive force and these cases were settled out of court, it wrongfully places a cloud of suspicion on officers of peerless integrity. We know what happens. We’ve seen it too many times.
Economic decision vs. economics decision
Economics is more complicated than arithmetic as it provides insight as to how humans make their most important decisions. Neither attorneys or accountants are experts in economics. While short term savings are simple to determine, the formula of the cost of settling versus taking a case to trial, works only for a limited time to save money but modifies all future scenarios. In fact, it’s opposed to the interests of both in-house and retained counsel to recognize the two key concepts of economics which are ‘benefits and costs’ as well as ‘incentives.’
When there is no pushback on baseless claims, the integrity of the organization is wrongfully damaged along with the reputation of the officer. By ignoring the validity of economics, they introduce a third concept: ‘supply and demand.’ In turn, they incentivize more groundless lawsuits, while financially costly, they also undermine the credibility of the profession.
Protect your officers over short-term cost savings
Wise agencies will continue to indemnify their officers. Bargaining units must negotiate agreements where settlements do not take place until after internal investigations (including those by external agencies) are completed.
If an officer is the defendant of a lawsuit, and the internal investigations determines that the officer has neither committed a criminal violation or violated any of the rules and regulations of their agency or the government they work for, to have a stipulation acknowledging those facts signed by the plaintiff as part of the settlement and ensure that it is public records discoverable.
That’s going to be tough for some to swallow, and that’s good. Pushing back has been long overdue and done right, it’s going to take billions of taxpayer dollars out of lawyers’ pockets and uphold a profession that has taken too much abuse.
Please keep all first responders in your prayers!
References
https://policefundingdatabase.org/explore-the-database/settlements/?page=1&all=true
https://www.nj.com/news/2023/05/the-16-times-cop-misconduct-cases-were-settled-for-1m-or-more.html
https://www.politico.com/video/2016/05/freddie-gray-arrest-057784
https://www.wesh.com/article/orlando-settles-officer-excessive-force-case-1/4418491#