A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that found South Bend police can’t be held liable for damages they caused to a home they wrongly raided.
The three-judge appeals panel for the U.S. 7th Circuit pointed to a ruling in a similar Wisconsin case in denying South Bend homeowner Amy Hadley’s complaint.
In 2022 South Bend and St. Joseph County police, armed with a warrant, raided Hadley’s home in the 1800 block of East Calvert Street. They shattered windows with tear-gas cannisters, threw flash-bang grenades through the front door, entered the house, and ransacked it.
But they had the wrong house. Still, the city and county have refused to pay for the damage.
Representing Hadley is the Virginia-based Institute for Justice, a national libertarian public interest law firm. Its attorney, Marie Miller, says they’ll probably appeal to the Supreme Court.
Miller says the Fifth Amendment requires just compensation for private property taken for public use.
"The Fifth Amendment is designed as a matter of fairness to have the public bear the burden of projects that benefit the public," Miller says. "Law enforcement obviously benefits the public and so the public should bear the costs, not individual victims of law enforcements' errors."
