Wrongful Arrest and False Imprisonment Claims

Arrested Without Cause It May Be False Imprisonment

Getting cuffed when you’ve done nothing wrong is a shock to the system. The noise of the street fades, your thoughts race, and all you can think is, “How is this happening?” The embarrassment lingers long after the ride to the precinct. So does the fear.

At Horn Wright, LLP, we hear versions of that moment again and again. People second-guess themselves. Maybe they should have explained more. Maybe they should have stayed quiet. None of that changes one basic point: if you were restrained without a lawful reason, that wasn’t just a bad experience. It was a violation of your liberty.

Wrongful arrest and false imprisonment aren’t legal technicalities. They’re names the law gives to a very human injury, the unlawful taking of your freedom, whether it lasted minutes or hours.

The Overlap Between Wrongful Arrest and False Imprisonment

These two claims sit close together. Wrongful arrest focuses on the decision to arrest without a valid basis. False imprisonment looks at the restraint itself, any confinement without legal authority. Two angles, one harm, and in many cases they rise and fall together.

Here’s a simple way to think about it. If an officer arrests you without cause, that arrest is also a confinement with no privilege. So the same facts can support both a wrongful arrest claim and a false imprisonment claim. You don’t have to choose one lane.

Federal law helps frame the overlap. The Fourth Amendment bars unreasonable seizures. If you were seized, told you couldn’t leave, placed in cuffs, moved to a patrol car, without the facts to justify it, the seizure is unlawful. That constitutional lens turns an “incident” into a civil rights case.

Proving Probable Cause Was Missing

Everything turns on probable cause. Not what officers learned later. Not what turned up after a search. What they knew at the moment they restrained you.

New York puts it plainly. Under Criminal Procedure Law §140.10, an officer may arrest without a warrant only if there is probable cause to believe an offense was committed. That standard isn’t a hunch. It’s what a reasonable person would conclude from concrete facts.

So how do you show it was missing? You pull the thread. Compare body-worn camera footage to the written report. Line up witness accounts with radio transmissions. Did the “suspicious behavior” amount to a crime? Were details added after the fact? When the story shifts, credibility cracks. And without probable cause, the arrest collapses.

How These Claims Work Together In New York

New York gives you the ability to run on parallel tracks. One track is the state tort route: false imprisonment and, often, assault or battery if force was used. The other is a federal civil rights action, where you challenge the arrest and detention as unconstitutional.

That second path is built on 42 U.S.C. §1983. It lets you sue state actors when they violate your constitutional rights under color of law. Pairing §1983 with state claims isn’t overkill. It’s strategy. Each claim fills gaps the other leaves open and broadens your potential remedies.

And yes, both can be filed in the same lawsuit when the facts fit. We’ve seen cases where the state claim highlights the human harm while the federal claim brings the constitutional weight. Together, they tell a fuller story.

Unlike Vermont, New York Allows Broader Damages for Wrongful Arrest Claims

Where you file matters. In Vermont, courts have historically taken a narrower view of what wrongful arrest damages should cover, focusing tightly on the physical restraint itself. Emotional fallout and reputational harm can get short shrift.

New York’s approach is wider. State tort law recognizes damages for the humiliation, anxiety, and ripple effects that follow an unjust arrest. And when the defendant is a city officer, General Municipal Law §50-k often means the municipality will indemnify judgments, making recovery realistic instead of theoretical. That doesn’t make the case easy. It makes the outcome meaningful.

The difference isn’t academic. Two people could live the same nightmare and see very different justice depending on the state line. In New York, the law is more willing to see the whole injury, not just the moment in handcuffs.

What Evidence Strengthens Both Types of Claims

Facts win cases. Not volume. Not outrage. Facts.

Start with video if it exists. Body-cam, surveillance, bystander clips. The quiet moments before the stop matter as much as the flash of the arrest. Next, reports. When the narrative reads like it was written backward to justify the outcome, that tells its own story. Inconsistent time stamps, recycled boilerplate, missing details, these aren’t trivial. They’re signals.

New York’s discovery rules under CPLR Article 31 let us dig for internal materials: CAD logs, training bulletins, prior related complaints. Since repeal of 50-a, misconduct records are more accessible, and patterns are harder to hide. Add in medical records, proof of lost work, and the notes you wrote that night while the memory was raw. Each piece is a thread; together, they weave the truth.

And do not underestimate eyewitnesses. The neighbor at the window, the cashier at the counter, the passenger in your back seat. Ordinary voices often carry extraordinary weight.

Remedies Available After a Wrongful Arrest

“Remedies” isn’t just lawyer talk. It’s what helps put your life back together. Some losses are measurable: missed shifts, ER bills, therapy expenses. Some are not: the panic when a cruiser idles behind you, the way people looked at you on the sidewalk. New York allows recovery for both in false imprisonment and wrongful arrest cases.

When your case includes a federal civil rights claim, 42 U.S.C. §1988 can open the door to attorney’s fees if you prevail. That matters. It levels the field, allowing victims to bring real cases without being priced out of justice. In the right facts, punitive damages can be on the table too, aimed squarely at conduct that crossed far beyond the line.

There’s also reform. A resolution can require policy changes, retraining, or supervisory review. Money matters; so does making sure the same thing doesn’t happen to the next person standing where you stood.

Horn Wright, LLP, Can Challenge Both Your Arrest and Detainment

A single bad day shouldn’t define you. An unlawful arrest shouldn’t become your story’s ending. At Horn Wright, LLP, we pick apart the timeline, test every “probable cause” claim, and build the record that shows exactly where your rights were taken. Our civil rights attorneys will pursue state tort claims and federal civil rights remedies in tandem when that gives you the strongest shot. If you were seized without a lawful reason, we’ll help you move forward with a firm nationally recognized for impact in civil rights litigation, pushing for outcomes that reflect what you lived through.