> Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to vio

> Qualified immunity is the principle that a public official acting in good faith cannot be held personally liable for an action that is later determined to violate the Constitution. No reasonable person, other than a nihilist, could possibly disagree with qualified immunity Actually no, it's perfectly reasonable to disagree with it as you've described. There is no analog for private companies - an employee can incorrectly think they're following the law, and end up being personally liable for actions they undertook in good faith for the company. Private companies get along just fine - in practice its not an impediment to companies accomplishing activities on the border of legality. I do believe that the focus on qualified immunity is a bit of a red herring though. What really needs to be drastically curtailed is general sovereign immunity. If police arrest someone, bust up their home, hold them for days, etc, and it turns out they're innocent, the appropriate government needs to be held directly liable/responsible for those damages. The government/department can then sort out whether those damages were due to some employees not following written policies, and if so discipline them and subrogate the damages. Right now the damages caused by law enforcement are being left as an externality funded by a perverse reverse-lottery, so predictably the injustices keep growing.