Actual Malice Makes Police Liable To Suit

The New York Court of Appeals has upheld causes of action against police officers

In a false arrest action under federal and state law, evidence that the defendant police officers arrested the plaintiff without probable cause, after inventing a patently false confession, may establish the officers’ liability for detaining the plaintiff without any lawful privilege. Evidence that the officers forwarded the false confession to prosecutors can satisfy the commencement element of a malicious prosecution cause of action, and the proof of the absence of probable cause for the prosecution and the police’s transmission of the fabricated evidence can overcome the presumption of probable cause arising from a grand jury’s indictment of the plaintiff. The same proof can support an inference that the police acted with actual malice in commencing the prosecution. Applying these principles to the consolidated appeals now before us, we hold that the courts below improperly granted summary judgment to the individual defendants on plaintiff’s false arrest and malicious prosecution claims under New York common law and 42 USC § 1983. We further conclude that, although plaintiff maintains triable state law claims against defendants the City of New York and the New York City Police Department, the lower courts properly granted summary judgment to those governmental entities on plaintiff’s claims under 42 USC § 1983…

The plaintiff in the litigation is  Maria De Lourdes Torres. (Mike Frisch)