That pretty much sums up the yanks i'm afraid, if the guy was parked illegally fair enough but for the copper to put his foot in front of the car was STUPID, he knew the driver was about to set off and clearly saw an opportunity to get his foot under the car tyre and claim for injury (From the driver seat the driver could not see him move his foot in the way!), hope that claim gets thrown out and that the driver gets his ticket (if parked illegally) and if he was not parked illegally the copper gets re-educated on parking infringements and forced to issue an apology to driver and that should be the end of that, what I suspect will happen is the driver will counter his claim with his own claim for $10 Million for police brutality if he was indeed parked legally......
I was on holiday in USA back in 1999 and my brother some mates and myself were out having a few beers in a bar, the bar in question had swing doors (old saloon type) we walked in the bar (my brother first), he swung the doors open and smacked some little fella right in the chops with the door
, what he was doing right behind swing doors i have no idea
, his nose was bleeding and he started shouting at my brother saying "I am gonna sue you for all your worth", I pissed myself laughing and said to my brother "That's about £500 then", we were all laughing (it probably did not help calm the ickle fella), I pointed out to him the signs on the back of the swing doors that stated clearly "No standing, risk of injury, keep clear of doors" or words to that effect, he said he would sue anyway, it was then my brother got his passport out and said to the guy "I don't think your suing anyone mate, your stood in the wrong place, there are plenty of witnesses and I am not american mate", police turned up, I spoke to them, mentioned we were tourists and pointed out we were not drunk (it was only the second bar we were at), pointed out the signs on the doors and that he was standing in wrong place and that he only got injured coz he stood behind the doors and coz he was a small fella and his face was at height of top of swing door (A fault if anything of the bar owners), police said to us "that's fine guys, you have a nice vacation" and sent us on our way