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Originally Posted by cyrnel
Anyway, I'm betting the policy makers don't mind this ruling at all. Police might mind, even the middle command who surely don't want to lose their tools, but those above will see it as ammo to help justify increased surveillance systems. Track offenders without chases. It could also put more wind in the sails of mandatory GPS vehicle tracking. Increased monitoring, citing, revenue, etc. JAZZ, if you can speak to it, what's your company's thinking in this area? (inside vs. public?)
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OK, first of all I'm a broker, so my company (at least with this kind of thing) takes on none of the risk but finds companies that are willing to. That said, I can tell you that it will make some insurance companies very nervous about writing what is referred to as "public entity" business in Nebraska. In reality, that means that the rates will be slightly higher so the City of Omaha will end up paying a few thousand dollars more for their insurance than they would otherwise.
Make no mistake about it - this is being paid by an insurance company in one way or another. I have no first hand knowledge of Omaha's insurance program (although I could probably find out), but at a minimum an insurance company will be paying $500,000 of the $1,500,000 payment. It's very rare to find a city of Omaha's size self-insuring more than $1,000,000 of their auto coverage, and I'm making an educated guess that they're probably self-insuring more like the first $100,000. It would save them a lot of money. So that means that of this $1,500,000 judgement, the city will most likely be responsible for the first $100,000, not the whole thing. The individual policemen would be covered by that insurance for any civil wrongdoing (as opposed to criminal) that the court found, and the insurance companies would have covered them.
Just to make every one feel all nice and safe in their nests, I did a quick check and as best I can tell, only 5 other states have laws similar to Nebraska's. So if you're in Arizona and a similar thing happens to you, you have no standing sue the state, even if the chase hadn't been called off. Make anyone feel better?
fistf, I think that it's hard to say who's truely at fault here, since it really doesn't matter. I know that's cold, but it's the reality of my world. The cops may have chased this guy for 1/2 mile or 10 miles, but the end result was that he hit the two claimants. The police initiated that chase, so their partially responsible. Since the police and City are the deep pockets, they're going to pay for the claimant's injuries. It's the way it works.