Which city settlement cases since 2020 include detailed accounting of payouts to protesters, and where can those court records be accessed?
Executive summary
Since the 2020 protests over George Floyd’s killing, multiple U.S. cities have reached settlements that include explicit per‑plaintiff payout amounts or line‑item totals to groups of protesters—most prominently New York City, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland and Columbus—and public records or court dockets tied to those agreements or to city finance disclosures provide the primary avenues to inspect the accounting [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Reporting shows, however, that some payouts were bundled into broader “police misconduct” totals or resolved pre‑litigation, meaning documentary transparency and the location of detailed court records vary by case and jurisdiction [6] [7].
1. New York City: multi‑million class actions with per‑person figures and federal dockets
New York reached at least two high‑profile protest settlements that contain explicit per‑person amounts: a roughly $13.7 million class settlement that would pay about $9,950 to up to ~1,380 people identified in federal court filings, and a Bronx class settlement that offered $21,500 per named plaintiff (with extra sums for those ticketed) — both matters were filed and negotiated in Manhattan federal court and were accompanied by extensive document production cited in reporting, which indicates the settlements and supporting stipulations are available on the federal court docket for the Southern District of New York or Manhattan federal filings [1] [8] [9]. Independent groups also publicized related consent decrees and injunctive settlements such as Payne et al., for which NYCLU posted the settlement and links to the court approval [10].
2. Philadelphia: a group settlement with court filings describing negotiations and remedies
Philadelphia agreed to a $9 million settlement for a West Philadelphia group alleging excessive force and teargassing; local reporting notes the involvement of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, months of negotiations, references to court filings about proposed reforms and settlement conferences before Magistrate Judge David R. Strawbridge, and that court records document meetings and a damages matrix used in talks — those filings and the settlement paperwork are therefore accessible through the federal docket or the filings cited in WHYY’s coverage [2].
3. Seattle: a $10 million settlement and county court records from prolonged litigation
Seattle’s $10 million settlement with 50 named protesters resolving claims of excessive force and related litigation arose after years of depositions, body‑worn camera review and rulings in King County; reporting states the case included thousands of internal documents and depositions of city officials and that court rulings (including discovery disputes) are part of the public file in King County Superior Court, where interested parties can seek the settlement documents and related orders [3] [11] [12].
4. Portland and Columbus: municipal accounting and council actions as records of payout totals
Portland’s city finance disclosures—obtained by Street Roots from the city’s office of budget and finance—show the municipality has paid over $9.1 million for protest‑related claims since May 2020 and include descriptions of the highest individual payouts in the city’s risk management records, meaning the accounting lives in municipal budget and risk office reports rather than a single federal class docket [4]. Columbus has incrementally disclosed settlements that now total more than $6.5 million and city council actions approving individual payouts are part of the public municipal record that contains the settlement amounts and, in some cases, line‑item breakdowns [5].
5. How to locate the records and caveats about completeness
The most direct places to find detailed accounting are the actual court dockets (federal district courts for class actions like New York and Philadelphia and state superior courts for Seattle), municipal finance and risk‑management records (Portland and Columbus), and advocacy organizations or plaintiffs’ counsel pages that sometimes publish executed settlements (NYCLU in Payne et al.) — reporters cite these exact sources when describing payouts [8] [10] [2] [4] [5]. That said, many city “totals” reported in watchdog analyses aggregate pre‑litigation claims, attorney fees and closed/unclosed matters so a headline figure (e.g., national tallies or citywide misconduct budgets) may not provide a line‑by‑line accounting of who received what without pulling the specific docket entry or settlement instrument referenced in the reporting [6] [13] [7].
6. Motives, limitations and what the records reveal
Cities and law departments often settle to avoid protracted litigation and political risk, a dynamic critics say depresses accountability even as settlements force some policy reforms; reporting shows many payouts were negotiated pre‑trial and some departments were criticized for delay or incomplete disclosure, meaning obtaining a full, granular accounting requires searching court dockets, municipal budget offices, and advocacy releases rather than relying solely on aggregated press totals [7] [6] [13]. Where sources here do not include a direct link to a docket entry, that absence is noted: the cited articles point researchers to the specific courts and municipal offices where the settlement instruments and related filings can be requested or downloaded [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].