Connecticut Gives You a Damages Action When Police Interfere With Filming (CGS § 52-571j)

The unusual feature of § 52-571j is who pays. The cause of action runs against the employer of the peace officer, not against the officer as an individual, so a claim is brought against the municipality, the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection or whichever law enforcement unit employs the officer. The section borrows the definition of peace officer from CGS § 53a-3 but carves two categories out of it: a special agent of the federal government, and a member of a law enforcement unit of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe or the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut. Filming a tribal officer on tribal land therefore falls outside this statute.

The five defences in subsection (c) are what determine the practical scope. The employer is not liable if the officer had reasonable grounds to believe the interference was to lawfully enforce a criminal law of Connecticut or a municipal ordinance, to protect the public safety, to preserve the integrity of a crime scene or criminal investigation, to safeguard the privacy interests of any person including a victim of a crime, or to lawfully enforce court rules and Judicial Branch policies on photographing, videotaping or otherwise recording in Judicial Branch facilities. The standard is the officer’s reasonable grounds, so a claim usually turns on whether the officer can point to one of those five purposes rather than on whether the recording itself was permitted.

The audio side of recording is governed by the eavesdropping definitions in CGS § 53a-187. Connecticut defines mechanical overhearing of a conversation as the intentional overhearing or recording of a conversation, without the consent of at least one party to it, by a person not present at it. Two elements have to fail before a bystander is at risk: the person must be absent from the conversation and must lack the consent of any party. Someone standing on a public sidewalk openly filming an officer is present, so § 53a-189, which makes eavesdropping a class D felony, does not reach ordinary open recording of police in Connecticut. The all-party consent rule people associate with Connecticut comes from a different statute, CGS § 52-570d, and it applies only to recording an oral private telephonic communication, not to filming in public.

Since the Police Accountability Act, Connecticut also records the police side of the encounter. CGS § 29-6d requires each police officer to use body-worn recording equipment while interacting with the public in a law enforcement capacity, to wear it on the outermost garment and position it above the midline of the torso, and requires each law enforcement unit to use a dashboard camera in each police patrol vehicle. Section 29-6d(d) bars anyone employed by a law enforcement unit from editing, erasing, copying, sharing or otherwise altering or distributing a recording or its data except as required by state or federal law. That interlocks with civil litigation: under CGS § 52-571k(d)(2), in an action for deprivation of the equal protection of Connecticut law, the trier of fact may draw an adverse inference from an officer’s deliberate failure, in violation of § 29-6d, to record any event relevant to the action.

A search of the General Statutes returns no Connecticut counterpart to the twenty-five foot approach offences enacted in other states, and no statute making it an offence to record an officer at any particular distance. What limits a bystander in Connecticut is the general interference offence, CGS § 53a-167a, which reaches a person who obstructs, resists, hinders or endangers a peace officer in the performance of duty.

A person whose filming was interfered with sues the officer’s employer under § 52-571j for redress at law or in equity. The section sets no cap and no separate limitation period, so the general tort limitation rules apply. The parallel and stronger route is CGS § 52-571k, added by July Sp. Sess. A. 20-1, § 41 and applicable to incidents on or after July 1, 2021: it allows a civil action in the Superior Court for equitable relief or damages where a police officer deprives a person of the equal protection or equal privileges and immunities of Connecticut law, including rights under article first of the Connecticut Constitution.

Governmental immunity is a defence to damages only where the officer had an objectively good faith belief that the conduct did not violate the law, there is no interlocutory appeal from a denial of that defence, and immunity is no defence at all to a claim purely for equitable relief. The action must be commenced not later than one year after the cause of action accrues, and the notice of claim provisions in § 7-101a(d) and § 7-465(a) do not apply. Costs and reasonable attorney’s fees are available where the violation was deliberate, wilful or committed with reckless indifference.

Municipalities and law enforcement units must save the officer harmless from financial loss and expense under § 52-571k(e), except where judgment enters for a malicious, wanton or wilful act. On the other side of the ledger, a bystander who goes beyond recording risks a charge of interfering with an officer under § 53a-167a, a class A misdemeanour carrying up to one year under § 53a-36(1) and a fine of up to two thousand dollars under § 53a-42(1), rising to a class D felony where the conduct causes death or serious physical injury.