About civilrightscalc.com

civilrightscalc.com is a free civil rights law resource maintained by The Click Lab. Our damages calculator and guides help people who believe a government actor — a police officer, a municipal employee, or a government agency — violated their constitutional rights understand what 42 U.S.C. § 1983 actually protects, what typically drives a case's value, and what a realistic recovery range looks like before they've spoken with an attorney.

What we do

We translate the § 1983 legal framework — qualified immunity doctrine, Monell municipal liability, the constitutional standards for excessive force, unlawful arrest, and due process violations, and the fee-shifting rules under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 — into calculators and guides a non-lawyer can actually use. Every page is reviewed by our editorial team against primary sources: the statutory text, Supreme Court precedent like Monell v. Dep’t of Social Services and City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, and current circuit-level case law on qualified immunity. The calculator estimates compensatory and, where applicable, punitive damages based on the type of violation, injury severity, and whether the defendant is an individual officer or a municipality — the single factor that most affects what damages are even available.

Who this calculator is for

Most visitors fall into one of a few groups: people who believe they experienced excessive force, an unlawful arrest, an unreasonable search, or another constitutional violation by a police officer or other government actor, and want to understand roughly what a case like theirs might be worth; family members trying to make sense of what happened to a loved one; and paralegals or intake staff who want a quick reference point before pulling the specific circuit case law and state notice-of-claim rules that apply to a given incident. We built the Site around getting each of these readers a useful, honest starting point fast, because § 1983 claims against government actors often carry short, easy-to-miss notice deadlines that don't wait for anyone to finish researching.

How the estimate is built

The full mechanics — the injury-severity base values, the violation-type multiplier, how lost income is added, when punitive damages apply, and why the output range is wider than our other calculators — are documented on our methodology page. At a high level: the calculator starts from a base value tied to physical injury severity, adjusts it for the type of constitutional violation, adds any lost income, and layers in punitive damages when the primary defendant is an individual officer rather than a municipality (punitive damages are not available against government entities). The result is a range, not a prediction — qualified immunity can reduce an individual officer's exposure to zero even where a violation is clear, and Monell's policy-or-custom requirement can do the same for a municipality, regardless of how sympathetic the underlying facts are.

What we don’t do

We don’t provide legal advice, and nothing on this Site creates an attorney-client relationship. Whether a specific incident supports a viable § 1983 claim depends on facts a calculator cannot weigh — whether the right at issue was “clearly established” for qualified immunity purposes, whether a municipality's policy or custom can be shown under Monell, and the notice-of-claim and statute-of-limitations rules in the state where the incident occurred. We also don’t evaluate individual cases, predict litigation outcomes, or recommend particular attorneys or law firms. For your specific situation, consult a licensed civil rights attorney; see our contact page for guidance on finding one and on the deadlines that make delay risky here.

Editorial standards

Every guide and reference page is written from primary sources — the § 1983 statutory text, Supreme Court and circuit case law on qualified immunity and Monell liability, and state notice-of-claim statutes — and reviewed before publication. We don’t publish thin content: each page is meant to answer a specific question someone facing a possible civil rights violation would actually ask, with enough substance to be useful while a filing deadline may already be running. Our full editorial workflow, contributor backgrounds, and sourcing policy are on the editorial team page.

How we make money

Display advertising via Google AdSense funds our editorial content, and we don’t accept paid placements or favorable mentions in our guides — no law firm or civil rights litigation marketing company pays to influence what we write. Separately, the Site offers an optional case-review form: if you submit it, your name, phone, email, and case details are shared with attorneys who may compensate The Click Lab Agency LLC for the referral. That's a disclosed advertising product, not an editorial endorsement, and using it is always optional. See our privacy policy for details on data handling and what's shared if you use the form.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or feedback: see our contact page.