bangbangthreehunna t1_j6xy809 wrote on February 2, 2023 at 6:02 PM

Reply to comment by LostSoulNothing in New York Pays $121 Million for Police Misconduct, the Most in 5 Years by hau5keeping

Explain QI to me outside of reddit karma terms.

LostSoulNothing t1_j6y053p wrote on February 2, 2023 at 6:13 PM

Basically it means that you can't sue a cop for something they did on a job (even if it was illegal and/or violated department rules). You have to sue the department meaning the taxpayers are on the hook for legal fees and any settlement or judgement instead of the individual officer. In theory the city should then discipline and/or prosecute the officer but in reality this rarely happens or is just a slap on the wrist.

bangbangthreehunna t1_j6y0m8k wrote on February 2, 2023 at 6:16 PM

Article states you cant lose a lawsuit despite not being outside of dept policy. How do we handle that?

wherearemypaaants t1_j7mvwt8 wrote on February 7, 2023 at 11:09 PM

Chiming in late to correct you a little here: QI actually means that you can’t sue a cop unless you can show they violated a clearly established law.

In practice, that means you have to find an identical (and I really do mean identical) case where the court decided the cops violated someone’s constitutional rights so you can show the court in your case, “see, the cops should have known stealing my rare coin collection while serving an unrelated search warrant was unconstitutional*.”

*a real case that really happened. The cops were granted QI bc apparently it wasn’t clearly established that literal theft is unconstitutional.