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Notes -
you can sue the city for what?
"cop did something bad" isn't enough to hold a city liability for the bad behavior of one of their cops
a video of a cop protected by qualified immunity doing something bad isn't some golden ticket to find municipal liability
under Monell, it is even more difficult to find municipal liability than individual liability with a steep evidentiary burden which courts are very reluctant to allow much discovery (if any) to find (if they don't just dismiss the claim during the pleading stage for failure to present supporting evidence)
in roughly half the federal circuits, a finding of municipal liability when qualified immunity has been upheld is all but impossible because the circuits have held local governments cannot fail to train to prevent a cop from violating a constitutional right which isn't clearly established
iirc, only the 9th circuit allows an independent claim to functionally survive upheld qualified immunity but in practical terms is very hard and very rare
for all practical purposes in typical cases, an upheld finding of qualified immunity ends the lawsuit
responding to someone pointing out these cases are not "a very easy civil lawsuit" by implying these sorts of claims are difficult because the vast majority of the time qualified immunity is upheld that they don't understand this situation because municipal liability is, to be frank, ridiculous
I see cases all the time where cities had to pay out for violating civil rights or excessive force. In the specific example I was replying to it included physical injury to myself without probable cause to detain. I am no legal expert but I feel like I see in the news all the time someone getting paid out. All of this would be on body camera. What am I missing?
As far as I am seeing qualified immunity only protects government officials from personal civil liability and has nothing to do with protecting a city from civil liability.
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