Hello all!
I have an acquaintance who is suing the San Francisco police department in Small Claims court for what he calls “wrongful arrest, defamation and emotional distress”.
Apparently a warrant was issued by San Francisco county (California) for a previous legal entanglement (he was a bit cagey about what that was) that had been resolved but the warrant was never discharged. He was later arrested on that warrant in SF and held in jail for a few days while until the error was corrected. During his incarceration he says he was withheld his medication for HIV and a heart condition (he had a heart attack a few weeks prior to the arrest). So he is suing for $5000 in damages.
Frankly I don’t think he knows what he is getting into and I offered the best advice I could give which was “you need to talk to a lawyer”. He doesn’t seem to have any corroborating evidence that they never gave him his meds (I’m not sure what evidence would even be available). I’m also not sure the SFPD is at fault if the courts failed to discharge the warrant.
I am not looking for legal advice but I am curious to see what the SDMB legal eagles have to say about his situation.
A few questions come to mind:
1 Does he have any sort of case? If so what evidence will be expected from him?
2 Is Small Claims court the right venue?
3 Is the SFPD the right agency to sue?
4 If he proceeds and he loses or the case is dismissed, then later an attorney believes he does have a case, will the SCC case count against him?
I didn’t want to rain on his parade but I also don’t want to see him get his ass handed to him in court. So thank you all in advance for your input, it is greatly appreciated!
I have heard of jailers denying inmates medical care. In some cases people have died. So very possible this did in fact happen. And good for him to do something to expose this.
If the jail had given him drugs there would a record created so the fact that he didn’t get the drugs should be easy enough to establish. What damages did he suffer as a result of not receiving the medication?
I doubt he has much of a case for false arrest since they did have a valid warrant.
Based on my experience on a legal forum, small claims court will be the wrong court for this type of action. Small claims is for the most part for provable monetary relief, the person the OP posted about will have a hard time proving this. This person needs to talk to an attorney to see if there is even a valid case. I don’t see one.
I think you are correct. I’m sure it changes between jurisdictions but I wouldn’t be surprised if many don’t allow for punitive damages or mental anguish.
We may be getting part of the story since this is through the friend filter. With this information given it seems like the OP’s friend is suing the wrong people. SFPD acted on good faith by arresting on a warrant that they had no reason to believe wasn’t valid. The SFPD doesn’t run the courts or the jail.
I see several possible problems with this admittedly vague description.
suing SFPD for false arrest, when they had a valid warrant is probably wrong. Should be suing whomever failed to vacate the warrant when he previously satisfied it.
in many/most locations, the jail is operated by the County Sheriff, not the local Police Department. So he should be suing the Sheriff.
can he prove that he told them about his medical condition when he was processed into the jail? Does he wear a medical-id bracelet identifying his conditions?
what actual damages can he prove? He obviously did not suffer another heart attck while jailed, and it would be hard to get a doctor to testify that a few days without his HIV medication has caused irreparable arm to his health. (Especially if his medical record shows any times when he forgot his medication for a few days.)
how did he come up with the $5,000 figure for his damages? I’d bet that he just picked the maximum for small claims court, with nothing to justify that number.