Can I sue the police for wrongful death?

On behalf of Aiken and Aiken P.C. Personal Injury Attorneys posted in Wrongful Death, on Saturday, August 22, 2015

Civil lawsuits against the government can be subject to misperceptions. One of these may be a hazy understanding of the doctrine of “sovereign immunity,” under which the government and its agents are immunized from lawsuits under certain circumstances. Or there is the more common saying that “You can’t fight city hall,” which carries with it the implied understanding that government bodies have the financial resources to outlast you in litigation.But it would be a mistake to think that when city officials and employees, including law enforcement personnel, act outside the bounds of reasonable behavior and harm ensues that you have no recourse to the law. You do, as some recent examples of successful lawsuits against police agencies in Massachusetts have demonstrated. Wrongful death is one area by which you can recover against the police if their actions cause the death of a loved one, and the damages awards can be substantial. In two incidents that have taken place in Boston alone, the family of a young woman who died as the result of injuries sustained from a police pellet gun won a $5 million wrongful death verdict, while another family received $3 million to settle their claim against the police for the death of a man who stopped breathing during an arrest.Wrongful death actions can be challenging to undertake and to prove in any context, and filing a civil lawsuit against the police is not something to be considered lightly, but as these two examples show it is possible to do with the right legal counsel at your side. You can fight city hall if you have the facts and the law on your side.Source: NewsMax, “Largest Payouts for Police Misconduct Lawsuits in Massachusetts,” Jerry Shaw, August 19 2015