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nification. Indemnification is a legal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to indemnify or accept the loss owed to a third party. In the collective bargaining agree- ment the City and the Fraternal Order of Police agreed to, certain rights and procedures exist with respect to indemni- fication and representation of police officers. Under Article 22.4, the City is required to provide indemnification and rep- resentation to its police officers so long as the officer is acting within the scope of his or her employment. Essentially, the City has agreed to provide us with a legal defense and to pay any damages that may arise from our good-faith, reasonable belief that our actions were lawful. However, if the City of Chi- cago believes that our actions were outside the scope of our employment, not only will we be required to pay for our own attorney, we may also be required to pay a damage award giv- en by a jury.
The simple case is the off-duty officer who gets into a car accident. The plaintiff attempts to file against the officer and the City of Chicago, claiming the officer was somehow on duty and thus the City should be responsible. The City of Chicago would not provide a defense and more than likely would be dismissed from the lawsuit. The more complicated situation is one where the officer is off duty, sees our friend Johnny the Jerk robbing a clerk and takes police action. As we are techni- cally on duty 24/7, the officer is acting as a police officer and should get the benefit of our collective bargaining agreement and be provided with an attorney and not be subject to dam- ages. But if the officer is acting punitively, he or she could lose those benefits. It is a very slippery area of policing and should
make us all think twice before engaging when off duty.
The defund the police crowd and their allies really do not care about the consequences of their righteous indignation. They simply hate the police and want to “get” them. However, the civil rights attorneys are motivated by the money these lawsuits can net. These are smart people. They recognize that if the City of Chicago cannot be held liable for the officer’s actions, then any judgment they are awarded may be uncol- lectible, as most police officers do not have millions of dollars to cover a damage award. The civil rights attorneys general- ly do want qualified immunity to go away. Remember, a lot of our assets are protected, as we own our homes with our spouses, collecting from our retirements is very difficult to do and generally speaking, we do not have Bezos- and Gates-size savings accounts. I do not believe these members of the bar want to be the owners of a lot of mortgaged cars or bass boats,
either.
There are some who believe that qualified immunity has
failed to gain traction due to more of the strength of the civil rights attorneys and less of the desire to protect police offi- cers. No big headline there. The two legal concepts of qual- ified immunity and indemnification have many more twists and turns in court, but essentially, if you are acting with good faith and reasonably believe your conduct comports with the law, you should be protected. However, we are not in a rea- sonable time, and the movement never accepts the point of view of the police officer.
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