Council Can Pay Damages for Police Officers, Court Rules

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Friday upheld the right of the Los Angeles City Council to shield police officers from punitive damages awarded in excessive-force cases.

In a 3-0 ruling, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the council is entitled to indemnify officers for punitive damages if the council has reviewed the case under guidelines set out in the California Government Code.

The code provides that a public entity “acting in its sole discretion” may pay a punitive damages award against a public employee if three criteria are met: The employee was acting within the course and scope of his or her employment, the employee acted “in good faith, without actual malice and in the apparent best interests of the public entity,” and payment of the punitive damages “would be in the best interest of the public entity.”

The decision stemmed from a February 1990 incident in which three men were killed and a fourth wounded by the Special Investigations Division of the Los Angeles Police Department after a robbery at a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland.

Relatives of the dead men filed a federal civil rights suit, and in 1992 a jury found nine officers and then-Chief Daryl F. Gates liable for $1 in compensatory damages and $44,000 in punitive damages. After deliberating for two days, the City Council voted to pay the punitive damage awards.

Johanna Trevino, daughter of one of the slain men, then filed another federal civil rights suit claiming that the council was sanctioning the officers’ actions and encouraging the use of excessive force.

The Appeals Court said that the council’s decision to pay punitive damages did not violate any clearly established law.