Civil Liability for Acts of Off-Duty Officers – Part I
1. Introduction
. Off-duty police officers, in some instances, encounter situations in which they may be called upon, at a moment’s notice, to act in their law enforcement role. Additionally, some off-duty officers are engaged in secondary employment, including jobs in private security. Off-duty officers, like all people, also become involved in disputes of various kinds with other individuals, including physical altercations and vehicular accidents. A good number of lawsuits, in both federal and state court, have attempted to impose civil liability on the off-duty officers themselves and/or on their municipal employer, under a variety of rationales. The issue arises whether and when the offduty officer is acting in their capacity as law enforcement, when they are acting on behalf of their secondary employer, such as a store or business for which they provide security or other services, and when they are acting in a purely personal capacity. This article, the first of two, briefly examines some of the existing case law on this...