Maryland's Police Accountability Act: Higher Damages Caps for Police-Misconduct Claims
When police misconduct injures someone in Maryland, there have long been two fights: the fight to prove what happened, and the quieter fight against the legal machinery that limits what accountability can look like. This spring, the General Assembly rebuilt a large part of that machinery.
In April, Maryland's legislature enacted the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021 — a package of reforms passed over Governor Hogan's veto of the key bills. It arrived a year after George Floyd's murder and six years after Freddie Gray's death in Baltimore police custody, and it makes Maryland the first state in the nation to repeal its Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights.
What the Act does
The package, anchored by House Bill 670, works several changes at once:
- Repeals the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights (LEOBR) — the 1974 statute, the first of its kind in the country, that gave officers accused of misconduct special procedural protections no other public employee enjoyed, and that critics long blamed for insulating officers from discipline.
- Creates new statewide discipline machinery in its place, including civilian involvement in the disciplinary process.
- Raises the damages cap for police-misconduct claims under the Local Government Tort Claims Act (LGTCA) — the change that matters most directly for injured people and their families.
The cap change, explained
Most claims against local government employees in Maryland — including police officers — are governed by the LGTCA, which requires the local government to defend and indemnify its employees but caps what an injured person can recover. The general caps are $400,000 per claim and $800,000 per occurrence. Those numbers quietly control the endgame of many serious cases: a jury can return any verdict it likes, but the judgment gets cut down to the cap.
The Police Accountability Act changes that for police cases. For claims arising on or after July 1, 2022, where liability stems from a law enforcement officer's intentional tort or violation of constitutional rights, the cap rises to $890,000 per incident.
| Claim type | Cap |
|---|---|
| General LGTCA claim | $400,000 per claim / $800,000 per occurrence |
| Police misconduct (intentional tort or constitutional violation), claim arising on or after 7/1/22 | $890,000 per incident |
That is more than double the per-claim ceiling — a legislative acknowledgment that the old cap bore no relationship to the harm done in serious misconduct cases: wrongful deaths, brain injuries, years of wrongful incarceration.
How this fits the existing law
The cap increase works alongside doctrines Maryland courts had already developed. In Cooper v. Rodriguez, 443 Md. 680 (2015), the Court of Appeals held that gross negligence defeats both common-law public official immunity and statutory immunity — the key that unlocks personal liability when an official's conduct is reckless rather than merely careless. The Police Accountability Act does not disturb that framework; it raises the ceiling on what accountability is worth when plaintiffs win.
It is worth being precise about what the Act does not do. It does not create a broad new private right to sue, and it does not eliminate the LGTCA's procedural requirements — including its strict notice provisions, which remain a trap for unrepresented claimants. The reforms change the discipline system and the damages ceiling; the burden of proving the case remains where it always was.
What this means for injured people in Maryland
- Timing matters. The higher $890,000 cap applies to claims arising on or after July 1, 2022. Claims arising before that date remain under the old limits.
- The notice rules still apply. LGTCA claims require timely written notice to the local government. Missing the notice deadline can end a strong case before it starts — get advice early.
- Discipline records and transparency provisions created by the reform package may make it easier to uncover an officer's history — often crucial evidence in a civil case.
- Families of those killed or seriously injured by police should have their cases evaluated by counsel who handle both the tort claims and the constitutional claims; the two travel together, and the caps apply differently to each.
Maryland's cap regime has always been where police cases go to shrink. As of this spring, the General Assembly has decided that when officers violate the constitution or commit intentional torts, accountability should cost what the harm actually costs — or at least, much closer to it.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.