The Explosion in Civil Litigation Settlements Against Cities
In 2021, total civil litigation claims against the city of New York, both tort—civil claims by an individual—and non-tort claims like contract disputes added up to about $1 billion a year. But in 2022, it accounted for $1.5 billion.
That massive jump is largely related to the settlement of one case: Gulino vs. Board of Education—a case that goes back to 1996 about discrimination against black and latino teachers based on the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test (LAST) exam.
But besides Gulino, NYC settlements have been increasing over the last 30 years. In 2010, total personal injury, property damage and contract claims only amounted to $520.6 million.
Previously, civil litigation against police departments had been in decline nationwide during Trump’s first term, with money flowing to civil rights organizations instead. But since the pandemic in 2020 and Biden’s term in office, civil litigation has come roaring back.
It’s not just NYC. While New York had the largest spending on tort claims by far, most major cities have seen large jumps in the amounts paid out. Often it’s the police department sued for things like excessive use of force or wrongful arrest, particularly in Chicago and Philadelphia, but also from a variety of other sources like faulty infrastructure or civil rights violations. In NYC, the largest year over year growth came from litigation with the Department of Education over special education needs.
Settlements Growing With Budgets
Litigation spending tends to follow city budgets. The larger the budget, the more claims and the larger the settlements. Total annual settlements tend to be within .5 to 2 percent of a city’s annual budget—with one mysterious exception: San Francisco.
The city by the bay spends almost nothing on police civil settlements, and there’s little detail about any other kind of settlements. While other cities have whole dashboards and annual reports dedicated to their spending on civil suits, San Francisco doesn’t mention the dollar amounts, just the number of cases.
Based on an article from Mission Local, the San Francisco Police Department settled $70 million worth of lawsuits over the course of 13 years (2010-2023)—a minuscule amount compared to most other major cities. That’s an average of $5.4 million spent per year and less than .1 percent of the city’s annual budget, nowhere close to Los Angeles or NYC.
But compare that to a 2012 story from the local ABC News affiliate that estimated San Francisco’s civil payouts at an incredible $265 million in one year. That seemingly impossible number would be significantly more than larger cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.
California in general is the epicenter of civil litigation against government, with an average jury verdict of $10 million or more and $72 billion in settlements in recent years.
Los Angeles
While the $600 million Los Angeles is set to spend over the last two years on settlements is nothing like what New York spends, it’s a lot larger than the $87 million the city budgeted for, and it’s potentially the largest as a share of the city budget. The high settlement costs come at a time when the city is already facing numerous financial struggles related to recent fires and homelessness.
According to a story from LAist, 2025 liability expenses are set to be triple what they were three years earlier, pushing the city’s already tenuous financial situation to the brink.
LAPD regularly accounts for the largest number, including a $20 million settlement over the detonation of illegal fireworks in 2021, but then there are also major non-police settlements, like a $21 million payout over a decaying streetlight that fell on a pedestrian.
Chicago
In Chicago, which is regularly considered a “judicial hellhole,” lawsuits against the police department easily outweigh all other litigation—72 percent of all settlements—to the point that other tort claims are barely mentioned in annual reports and the city produces an annual report solely on police litigation.
Settlements in the windy city have doubled since 2020, going from a little over $40 million a year to regularly over $80 million.
Police tort cases are so dominated by one law firm—Loevy and Loevy—to the point that payments to the firm regularly account for almost 50 percent of all payments.
Atlanta and Philadelphia
Like Chicago and Los Angeles, Atlanta and Philadelphia both saw litigation spikes since 2020, sometimes two or three times what it was pre-pandemic.
According to a story from Governing, the city spent an average of $9 million a year between 2013 and 2017 but was set to spend over $60 million between 2024 and 2023.
And again, it was police department settlements that represent the majority of claims. In 2021 in Philadelphia, almost $50 million of the total $70 million in settlements were with the police department. In Atlanta, the almost $25 million spent in 2021 and 2023 is three times what was spent in 2019.
