Police Pursuits and Civil Liability

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The, July, 2001 by Chris Pipes, Dominick Pape

A federal civil lawsuit was initiated against the officers and the Vineland Police Department, including the chief of police. The plaintiffs argued that "the City and Police Chief violated section 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment by following a policy of not properly training and supervising police officers in the conduct of high speed pursuits, and by following a policy of not enforcing the pursuit guidelines." [23] The lower court ruled in favor of the city and the police officers. The appeals court in Fagan v. Vineland reversed the judgment against the city stating, "A municipality can be liable under section 1983 and the Fourteenth Amendment for failure to train its police officers with respect to high speed automobile chases, even if no individual officer participating in the chase violated the Constitution." [24]

The complete Third Circuit reargued the case under Fagan v. Vineland on only one issue. [25] The issue dealt with the legal standard to be applied to police pursuits. The majority ruled that the appropriate standard describes police behavior that "shocks the conscience." The dissenting opinion called for a lesser standard-"reckless or callous indifference." This latter standard, of course, represents a much lower threshold. The dissenting opinion was extensive in attempting to justify this lower standard in police pursuit cases. The majority, however, concluded that the police conduct in this case did "shock the conscience" and ruled in favor of the police.

State courts have applied different standards in reviewing police pursuit cases. The Appellate Court of Illinois in Nelson v. Thomas [26] and Urban v. Village of Lincolnshire [27] referred to "wilful and wanton conduct." The Court of Appeals of Georgia in Wilson v. City of Atlanta [28] and Thompson et al. v. Payne [29] considered "whether, officer's act of pursuing suspect's vehicle was performed with requisite regard for safety of all persons." The District Court of Appeals of Florida in Porter v. State Department of Agriculture asked "if defendant's conduct creates foreseeable 'zone of risk' that poses general threat of harm to others and whether it was foreseeable that defendant's conduct would cause specific injury that actually occurred." [30] Clearly, prior to Fagan, federal courts had no clear direction from state courts in defining the standard by which to judge police behavior during pursuits.

County of Sacramento v. Lewis

In the U.S. Supreme Court decision in County of Sacramento v. Lewis, [31] the Court has clarified the federal standard that must be met by plaintiffs who allege police misconduct during vehicle pursuits. The Court held that "the issue in this case is whether a police officer violates the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of substantive due process by causing death through deliberate or reckless indifference to life in a high speed automobile chase aimed at apprehending a suspected offender. We answer no, and hold that in such circumstances only a purpose to cause harm unrelated to the legitimate object of arrest will satisfy the element of arbitrary conduct shocking to the conscience, necessary for a due process violation." [32]