BY SAL GRECO
For New York City taxpayers, lawsuits involving the NYPD are not abstract legal disputes. Every claim that turns into years of discovery, depositions, motions, outside counsel, judgments and settlements ultimately creates a financial exposure for the City.
And the numbers are substantial.
According to the NYC Comptroller, NYPD tort claims produced $239.1 million in settlement and judgment payouts in FY2022, $266.7 million in FY2023 and approximately $309.6 million in FY2024. That’s more than $815 million in three fiscal years alone—before counting every other category of litigation expense associated with defending cases.
By FY2025, the Comptroller reported another 6,082 Police Action claims and more than $113 million in settlements as of September 16, 2025.
The question taxpayers should be asking isn’t simply, Why does the NYPD get sued so much?
It’s also: When City officials see cases presenting serious litigation risk, who decides whether to keep fighting—and at what cost?
A growing litigation problem
The trend is difficult to ignore. NYPD tort claims increased from 4,588 in FY2022 to 6,891 in FY2023. The following fiscal year, more than 9,000 NYPD claims were filed, according to Comptroller data.
The Comptroller has explicitly identified the NYPD as a major source of claims against the City and has argued that preventing misconduct can reduce both harm and taxpayer costs.
Against that backdrop sit a growing number of employment, discrimination, retaliation, civil-rights and police-misconduct cases involving current and former NYPD officials.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch herself is routinely named in litigation in her official capacity. For example, a federal court order issued just this week identifies Tisch as an official-capacity defendant in a §1983 lawsuit alongside the City, NYPD and former Commissioner Edward Caban.
A review cited by The Sal Greco Show places the number of state-court matters naming Tisch at more than 75. That figure should be treated as a docket-count assertion rather than a finding that Tisch personally committed wrongdoing: officials are frequently named in their official capacities simply because of the offices they hold.
But the sheer volume raises another issue. At what point does the City’s strategy shift from reflexively litigating every case toward determining which cases should be resolved early?
Gabrielle Walls: allegations that survived a dismissal effort
The Gabrielle Walls litigation demonstrates why this question matters.
Walls filed a New York Supreme Court action in July 2024 alleging gender discrimination, sexual harassment, hostile work environment and retaliation within the NYPD, with allegations reaching back to 2015. The City attempted to strike portions of her complaint and dismiss older allegations.
In March 2025, Justice Hasa A. Kingo largely rejected that effort. The court denied the motion to strike, rejected the statute-of-limitations dismissal sought by defendants and permitted Walls to amend her complaint.
Perhaps more significantly, the court concluded that allegations concerning other lawsuits and misconduct could be relevant to Walls’ effort to demonstrate a broader workplace culture.
That doesn’t establish that Walls will ultimately prevail. Allegations remain allegations until proven or resolved.
But it illustrates the danger of assuming that a motion to dismiss will automatically make uncomfortable litigation disappear.
Greco v. City of New York enters its fifth calendar year
My own federal lawsuit presents another example.
Greco v. City of New York was filed in August 2022 after my termination from the NYPD. I allege that the Department violated my First Amendment rights by investigating and terminating me because of my personal and political associations.
The City sought dismissal.
In August 2023, the federal court granted that motion only in part and denied it in part, allowing portions of the litigation to continue.
Now, in 2026, the litigation has crossed into its fifth calendar year.
From my perspective as the plaintiff, the City’s litigation strategy has involved delay and efforts to avoid the depositions and discovery that would accompany the case moving deeper toward trial, followed by an effort to obtain summary judgment. The City, of course, is entitled to pursue summary judgment, just as a plaintiff may challenge an adverse final judgment through the appellate process where legally available.
But every additional round of motion practice has a cost.
And taxpayers—not the individual executives whose decisions created the dispute—generally finance the City’s defense.
David Terrell and the expanding retaliation allegations
Former NYPD Detective David Terrell has also brought litigation challenging the Department’s treatment of him.
Terrell’s attorneys allege that his disciplinary case arose after he accessed a complaint report concerning an alleged sexual assault at One Police Plaza and subsequently confirmed the existence of that report after I publicly discussed the allegation.
His attorneys have characterized the disciplinary proceeding as retaliation and have demanded dismissal of the charges, restoration of lost compensation and expungement of the matter.
Terrell subsequently filed a human-rights lawsuit alleging discrimination and retaliation and naming Tisch and others as defendants. Those allegations are disputed and have not been adjudicated as fact.
Again, the larger taxpayer question remains the same:
Is prolonged litigation the least expensive—and most responsible—way to resolve every one of these disputes?
Adams, Pearson and Maddrey: when the City stops providing a lawyer
There is also an important misconception that City officials automatically receive taxpayer-funded lawyers regardless of what they’re accused of doing.
Recent events demonstrate otherwise.
In March 2026, Corporation Counsel determined that former mayoral adviser Tim Pearson was no longer entitled to City-funded representation in lawsuits accusing him of sexual harassment and retaliation. The same determination reportedly applied to former NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey’s alleged role in the Pearson litigation. Pearson had reportedly already accumulated more than $622,000 in City-paid legal fees.
Days later, Corporation Counsel also moved to withdraw from representing former Mayor Eric Adams in litigation concerning allegations of sexual misconduct dating to 1993, concluding that the alleged conduct was outside the scope of his City employment. Adams denies the allegations.
These decisions underscore an important principle:
Taxpayer-funded representation is not necessarily unlimited.
So who actually controls an NYPD lawsuit?
This is where the public discussion often becomes legally inaccurate.
The Police Commissioner cannot personally order the City to pay a plaintiff and settle a lawsuit.
Under §394 of the New York City Charter, Corporation Counsel is the attorney for the City and its agencies and controls the City’s legal business and litigation.
Once litigation begins, attorneys from the NYC Law Department generally defend the City, conduct discovery, take and defend depositions, file motions, evaluate liability, negotiate with plaintiffs and make litigation recommendations.
But Corporation Counsel does not possess unilateral settlement power either.
Charter §394(c) expressly provides that Corporation Counsel cannot compromise or settle a claim against the City without the Comptroller’s prior approval.
And under Charter §93(i), the NYC Comptroller is responsible for settling and adjusting claims for and against the City. The Comptroller’s own claims materials describe that authority directly.
The basic structure therefore looks like this:
NYPD → Corporation Counsel/Law Department → Comptroller → Settlement
Before litigation, the Comptroller can also investigate and settle appropriate claims directly. The Comptroller has repeatedly used that authority to resolve matters before lawsuits consume years of City resources.
What can Jessica Tisch actually do?
This distinction matters.
Jessica Tisch cannot pick up a pen and unilaterally settle a $5 million lawsuit against New York City.
But that does not mean the Police Commissioner is powerless.
As head of the agency whose conduct is being litigated, a commissioner can have the Department and its lawyers assess pending cases, identify high-risk litigation and communicate the agency’s desire to resolve appropriate cases to Corporation Counsel. The Department can cooperate with the Law Department’s evaluation of witnesses, documents, institutional risks and potential settlement.
In other words, Tisch can effectively say:
Review these cases. Tell me where the Department’s exposure is substantial. Determine which ones make financial and institutional sense to resolve rather than litigate for another three years.
Corporation Counsel can then negotiate where appropriate, with the Comptroller providing the approval required for a City settlement.
That’s dramatically different from claiming the Police Commissioner personally possesses settlement authority.
She doesn’t.
But she certainly doesn’t have to pretend the lawsuits don’t exist.
Sometimes settling early is dramatically cheaper
The Comptroller’s own numbers demonstrate why early evaluation matters.
From FY2019 through FY2023, the City resolved 5,940 personal-injury police-action claims before litigation. The average cost of those pre-litigation settlements was approximately $17,609.
The average cost of police-action claims resolved after entering litigation was $68,702—nearly four times as much.
That doesn’t mean every claim should be settled. Some claims are weak. Some are frivolous. Some should absolutely be defended through trial.
But automatically fighting everything isn’t fiscal conservatism either.
Sometimes it’s extraordinarily expensive stubbornness.
The missing piece: personal accountability
And that brings us to the issue almost nobody at City Hall wants to discuss.
When an NYPD executive makes a reckless personnel decision, launches a questionable disciplinary action or allows misconduct to continue—and litigation eventually costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars—who personally pays the price?
Usually, not the executive.
The taxpayer does.
The Commissioner doesn’t personally write the settlement check. A chief isn’t ordinarily handed the bill for Corporation Counsel’s attorneys. A deputy commissioner doesn’t personally reimburse the City because depositions, discovery and motion practice lasted four years.
Instead, the financial consequences become institutionalized.
The Comptroller has even advocated changing that incentive structure. In discussing the City’s claims costs, the office argued that agencies should be held financially accountable through their own budgets rather than allowing settlement expenses simply to disappear into the City’s General Fund.
That deserves serious consideration.
Accountability shouldn’t mean personally charging an official every time the City loses a lawsuit; public officials need room to make difficult good-faith decisions without fearing personal bankruptcy.
But there is an enormous gap between that principle and a system in which repeatedly bad executive decisions can generate millions in taxpayer liability without meaningful managerial consequences.
If an executive decision generates a major settlement, the City should be asking what happened, whether policy was violated, whether supervisors ignored warnings and what changes are necessary to prevent taxpayers from paying for the same mistake again.
Fighting everything isn’t accountability
Nobody is suggesting New York City should write a check to everyone who files a complaint.
What the City should do is distinguish between cases that deserve a vigorous defense and cases where the evidence, precedent, discovery exposure and potential damages make settlement the fiscally responsible option.
Because the numbers aren’t theoretical anymore.
NYPD claims have cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars year after year.
And every dollar spent defending a preventable lawsuit is a dollar that isn’t going toward cops on the street, equipment, training, schools, sanitation, parks or tax relief.
Jessica Tisch cannot unilaterally settle these cases.
But as Police Commissioner, she can demand that the Department identify its litigation exposure, work with Corporation Counsel, and push for serious settlement discussions where continuing to fight no longer makes sense for the NYPD or the people footing the bill.
Ultimately, Corporation Counsel litigates.
The Comptroller approves settlements.
And the taxpayers pay.
The unanswered question is whether anyone inside One Police Plaza is treating that last part as seriously as they should.