Police Brutality & Civil Rights
Related Civil Liability
4 statutes with plain-language summaries, case relevance, source links, and related Michigan practice areas.
Related Civil Liability
4 statutes"A civil action for malpractice may be maintained against any person professing or holding himself out to be a member of a state licensed profession." The statute also provides that common-law malpractice rules apply to a person who holds himself or herself out as a member of a state licensed profession.Read Full Statute
MCL 600.2912 applies to malpractice actions against people who profess or hold themselves out as members of a state licensed profession. It is not a standalone police-misconduct standard of care.
This statute may be relevant only if a civil-rights matter includes a separate licensed-professional malpractice theory. Ordinary police negligence, gross negligence, intentional tort, and federal constitutional claims require separate legal analysis.
We separate constitutional claims, intentional torts, governmental-immunity issues, and any licensed-professional malpractice theory so the case is pleaded under the correct legal framework.
"Any legal entity that has the capacity to sue or be sued in Michigan courts may be named as a party in a civil action. Governmental entities, including municipalities, counties, and state agencies, may sue and be sued subject to the applicable provisions of the Governmental Immunity Act."Read Full Statute
This statute defines who has legal capacity to bring or defend lawsuits in Michigan — including government entities, corporations, and individuals. It determines whether a police department can be named as a distinct defendant separate from the employing municipality.
Properly naming all defendants — the individual officer, the department (where applicable), and the municipality — ensures all sources of potential recovery are reached by the lawsuit from the start.
We carefully structure complaints to name every legally appropriate defendant entity, ensuring maximum coverage of potential recovery sources in every civil rights case.
"A person shall not engage in a course of conduct involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested."Read Full Statute
Michigan's stalking statutes prohibit repeated, unwanted following or harassment that would cause a reasonable person to feel terrorized or intimidated. When police officers engage in targeted, retaliatory harassment of a civilian without legitimate law enforcement purpose, the stalking statute may provide an additional civil remedy.
Retaliatory police conduct — repeated stops, surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of activists or whistleblowers — can constitute criminal stalking and support civil claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil rights violations.
We document patterns of police targeting and harassment to establish civil stalking claims alongside § 1983 civil rights claims in cases involving retaliatory or politically motivated law enforcement conduct.
"A person who suffers loss as a result of a violation of a penal law of this state may bring a civil action to recover damages from the person who violated the penal law. A person who brings an action under this section may recover 3 times the actual damages sustained by that person, plus costs and reasonable attorney fees."Read Full Statute
Michigan law allows a person harmed by another's criminal conduct to bring a civil lawsuit for damages based on that criminal conduct. When a police officer's actions also constitute crimes — assault, battery, torture — a victim can pursue civil damages even if the officer was never criminally prosecuted.
The civil standard of proof (preponderance of the evidence — more likely than not) is far lower than the criminal standard (beyond a reasonable doubt). Officers who escape criminal prosecution can still be held civilly liable for the same conduct.
We use § 600.2954 to bring civil claims based on criminal conduct that officers were never prosecuted for, leveraging the lower civil standard to establish liability and recover full damages for our clients.