George Floyd Family Secures $27 Million Settlement from Minneapolis in Wrongful Death Suit

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 42-year-old Black man, died in Minneapolis after former police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest on a minor charge. Three other officers -- Tou Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng -- stood by or assisted. Bystander video of Floyd's repeated statements that he could not breathe spread across the country within hours, triggering nationwide protests over police use of force and systemic racism in American law enforcement.

The Floyd family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, captioned Kaarin Nelson Schaffer v. Derek Chauvin et al., Case No. 0:20-cv-01577-SRN-TNL, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. The complaint alleged that the four officers violated Floyd's constitutional rights through the use of excessive and lethal force, and that the City of Minneapolis had for years permitted a culture of excessive force and racial bias to operate inside its police department without meaningful accountability.

Antonio Romanucci of Romanucci and Blandin served as co-lead counsel for the family alongside attorney Ben Crump and other co-counsel. The legal team pressed the city on both the specific conduct of the officers and the broader institutional failures that made it possible. Romanucci noted after the settlement that the family sought not only compensation but durable police reforms, including a use-of-force review panel, a quality assurance unit, and an early-intervention system to flag problem officers before further harm occurred.

On March 12, 2021, the Minneapolis City Council voted 13-0 to approve the $27 million settlement, the largest pretrial civil rights wrongful death settlement in U.S. history at that time. The agreement included $500,000 designated for improvements to the 38th Street and Chicago Avenue business district near where Floyd died. The city also committed to a package of use-of-force reforms, including mandatory body camera activation, de-escalation requirements, and new recruitment priorities for officers with community service backgrounds.

The settlement was reached before Derek Chauvin's criminal murder trial concluded. Chauvin was later convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in April 2021. The civil case resolved independently of those criminal proceedings.