A new Institute for Justice study examines how often local governments compensate property owners when police damage homes, vehicles or businesses during law-enforcement operations. The report arrives as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to review two cases involving innocent owners and cites a recent Texas ruling requiring the city of McKinney to pay for a home destroyed during a SWAT response.
The study reviewed more than 2,700 claims filed in 222 local jurisdictions between 2015 and 2023. Institute for Justice researchers estimated that the total would translate to about 12,000 claims across more than 1,000 large jurisdictions with SWAT teams during the same period. Those figures and projections are the organization’s findings, not independent TPI calculations.
According to the report, half of the claims sought more than $1,260 and one in ten sought at least $10,000. More than 90 percent of claimants were not the target of the police action that caused the damage. Among those owners, more than 70 percent had no relationship to the target, yet governments denied 41 percent of their claims.
The Institute for Justice also estimated that paying every submitted claim would cost the average municipality about $6,500 annually. That calculation assumes all claims are valid and is presented by the group to support its position that compensation would not materially strain local budgets.
The Texas connection involves a McKinney homeowner whose residence was severely damaged when a SWAT team pursued an armed fugitive in 2020. Earlier in 2026, an appeals court upheld a ruling that the Texas Constitution requires McKinney to compensate the owner. That decision creates a state constitutional accountability path while federal courts continue to disagree over how the Fifth Amendment applies when police destroy innocent property while protecting the public.
The two pending Supreme Court petitions involve a Los Angeles print shop damaged after a fugitive barricaded himself inside and a South Bend, Indiana, home damaged during a search for a suspect who had never entered the residence. The Institute for Justice represents the owners and advocates for a rule requiring government compensation. The Court has not yet agreed to hear either case.
For Texas cities, counties and property owners, the study adds national data to a question already tested in McKinney: whether the cost of public-safety operations should fall on an innocent individual or be shared by the government acting for the public benefit.