Item 84-154 Legal Fees David SikorskiDate: November 30, 1984
To: City Council
From: Jerre Miller
Re: Sergeant David Sikorski
MEMORANDUM
CITY OF HOPKINS
1010 FIRST STREET SOUTH • HOPKINS, MINNESOTA 55343 • 612/935 -8474
The City of Hopkins is not obligated to reimburse the attorney's
fees incurred by Sergeant David Sikorski.
Laws concerning the duties of municipalities to reimburse the
attorney's fee of their employees are set forth in M. S. 3466.07
and 471.44. Neither statute obliges municipalities to reimburse
attorney's fees where the city employee occurred them in the course
of defending against an administrative disciplinary charge.
M. S. 3466.07 identifies the circumstances under which a
municipality must defend its employees who are sued on the basis of
tort claim M. S. 3 466.07, subd. 1A. False imprisonment and injury
to persons are two typical tort claims. M. S. §471.44. Under
certain circumstances a municipality may be required to defend
against such tort claims. Since the claim lodged against Sergeant
Sikorski by the City of Hopkins was not a tort claim but a
disciplinary charge, the mandatory indemnification provisions of
§466.07 do not apply, and the City need not reimburse him for his
legal expenses.
M. S. §471.44 states the conditions under which a municipality must
pay reasonable attorney's fees to defend police officers who are
sued as a result of arrests they have made. The disciplinary claim
against Sergeant Sikorski was not the result of an arrest he had
made. Therefore, the mandatory payment of attorney's fees
provisions of the section do not apply.
There is no statutory basis for concluding that a municipality must
provide a legal defense for employees during the course of an
administrative disciplinary hearing. There are several reasons for
not requiring the expenditure:
a. An officer who is confident of reimbursement for legal
expenses from the treasury of the City might become reckless
in the exercise of the powers of his office. City of
Moorhead vs. Murphy, 102 NW 119, 220 (1905);
b. In the absence of a statute requiring indemnification, it is
wisest to leave the indemnification of officers to the
discretion of those who represent the interest of the City,
and those representatives should not be obliged to protect
every officer under circumstances which seem to them to
indicate a blameable want of care and caution. City of
Moorhead, 102 NW at 220;
c. Municipalities may be discouraged from bringing
administrative disciplinary charges against officers whose
conduct they deem blameable if they risk having to pay the
officers' attorney's fees;
d. Municipalities may be discouraged from aggressively
investigating citizen's complaints alleging police
misconduct if the municipalities are aware that an even more
substantial degree of blame than currently demanded must
exist before the municipalities should institute
disciplinary action, at the risk of having to pay the
Defendant's attorney's fees.
JAM