[OT] Legal question: restitution for damages caused by police pursuit
From
Rhino@no_offline_contact@example.com to
rec.arts.tv on Sat Sep 5 14:04:47 2026
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv
Having seen a number of high speed police chase videos now, I'm curious
to know about how collateral damage gets compensated after such a chase.
For instance, cops are chasing John Doe down the highway and, despite
running over stop sticks and puncturing multiple tires, John keeps
running. Finally, the cops do a PIT and John spins out, flees the car,
and gets captured by police. However, during the course of the pursuit,
the officer manning the stop sticks doesn't withdraw them quite quickly
enough and an innocent third party vehicle runs over them and loses a
tire or two. Also, the PIT causes John's car to smack into another
innocent third party vehicle causing property damage and/or injury to
that third party.
How do these third parties get compensated? Can they apply to the police
who presumably have a budget item for the compensation? Do they have to
sue John Doe as being the cause of the chase? Will their insurance cover
their losses? Does the insurance company then sue John Doe and/or the
police departments involved?
--
Rhino
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2