Claims Against Cities, Counties and States: Tapping into Bi-Partisan Dissatisfaction

Jury verdicts—particularly against public entities—are getting much larger. Why its that? One reason is because public trust in government has never been lower.

Here’s a graph from the Pew Charitable Trust.

Some issues are partisan. This doesn’t come from one side of the aisle. Both conservative and liberal jurors hold city and state governments in low regard. Most view them as incompetent.

Conservatives have historically viewed city and state governments as inefficient and intrusive. There is deep skepticism regarding they way they regulate businesses and provide social services.

Liberal distrust typically spikes during periods of conservative leadership and when there’s over-reaching including government surveillance and restrictions on personal choices. (Sound familiar?)

Misinformation erodes confidence on both sides. There is a bilateral consensus that institutional competence and neutrality are declining.

Several recent cases emphasize how negative perception of cities, counties and the State is translating into massive verdicts.

They’re notable not for their specific facts, but for the message they send about governmental entities that have the time and resources to solve a problem but fail to take action/see the initiative through to conclusion.

The most recent was returned by a Pierce County jury in April. Social workers failed to act on numerous red flags that the child was being abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Had the State followed its own protocols/standards the child would have been removed from her mother’s home. Unfortunately the State failed to act and the child died. The total verdict was $140M.

(Only $10M was assigned to the mother’s boyfriend. That’s significant because it shows juries often blame cities and states more than individuals.)

There was another recent verdict in a case in Spokane County were the State failed to protect a young victim from a known rapist. The State's own guidelines were used as a roadmap to not only establish liability but also (and maybe more importantly) as a way to help the jury appreciate how action would have prevented the harm and the State’s inaction was responsible for it.

After the trial the jury emphasized that the State had multiple opportunities to protect a young person and failed to do so. Multiple jurors explained that they were moved by the fact the State knew there was a danger, identified the danger, and then neglected to address it.

That confluence of factors resulted in at $42M verdict in very-conservative Spokane County.

I can see where it might be tempting to differentiate these cases from motor vehicle collisions because they involved criminals instead of defective signals, sight obstructions or inadequate signage.

But people who hurt children and roadway defects have some of the same DNA: They’re known hazards from which our governments have a duty to protect citizens. (And I think it’s fair to say that it’s harder to play defense against highly motivated pedophiles than it is against roadway striping, trees and ivy.)

All of these cases share the same underpinnings and themes:

• Government identifies the hazard.

• Government fails to follow its own guidelines.

• Injury results.

• A life is taken or significantly altered.

Conservatives and liberals may have different reasons for sharing the same feelings about cities, counties and the State. But they’ve found an effective pulpit to make their feelings known.

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