Opinion ID: 482900
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Strip-Search Cases

Text: 43 The Joan W. and Levka cases, supra, both dealt with strip searches conducted by Chicago police pursuant to City of Chicago policy. At the time Joan W. was decided, at least ten suits had been tried before juries in the Northern District of Illinois. Damage awards ranged from a low of $3,300 to a high of $60,000. The jury's award of $112,000 to Joan was clearly disproportionate to the earlier awards. We went on to examine the factual circumstances of each of the cases and found that some of the searches were more aggravated than the search to which Joan had been subjected. In contrast to the searches imposed on other plaintiffs, Joan's search did not involve any touching and was not conducted within the view of male officers. The plaintiff also did not claim or prove that she had suffered emotional distress or trauma more severe than that claimed by other plaintiffs. For example, Joan did not seek psychiatric or psychological assistance. She showed little evidence of diminished social contacts, and the experience appeared to have had no ill effects on her job performance. Based on this comparison, we believed that the damage award was excessive to the extent it exceeded $75,000. This court remanded the case to the district court to hold a new trial unless plaintiff agreed to a remittitur reducing the award to $75,000.