David Rudovsky (born 1943, Queens, New York) is an American civil rights and criminal defense lawyer. He was a founding partner, in 1971, of the law firm of Kairys & Rudovsky (later known as Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg and Lin).[1][2] Rudovsky is a Senior Fellow at University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he teaches evidence and constitutional criminal procedure. In 1996, Rudovsky won Penn's Lindback Award for Teaching Excellence.[3] In 1986 he was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.[4]
Rudovsky has twice appeared before the United States Supreme Court. He represented the plaintiff in Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985), which addressed whether a government official could be sued for damages based on having authorized a warrantless wiretap for the purpose of gathering intelligence regarding a suspected threat to national security. The Supreme Court held that the official was immune from suit, regardless of the actual legality or illegality of the conduct, because his actions had not violated clearly established law. In addition, Rudovsky represented the plaintiff in City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378 (1989), which addressed whether police could be sued for failing to provide medical treatment to an arrestee who had fallen down while in police custody and allegedly had suffered "emotional ailments" as a result. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiff had not proven "deliberate indifference" by the police to the plaintiff's medical condition, and therefore had not established that they were liable for damages.
In 2009, Rudovsky and his co-author, Widener University Law School Professor Leonard Sosnov (previously and subsequently an appellate public defender in Philadelphia), sued West Publishing Company over the company's issuance of a "2008-2009 pocket part" (update) to the authors' 1991 treatise on Pennsylvania criminal procedure. In prior years, the two authors had prepared annual supplements but for that year had not agreed on terms with the publisher, and so did not prepare one. When West issued a pocket part under Rudovsky and Sosnov's names anyway, which the authors considered grossly deficient, they brought suit.[5] A jury ruled in favor of Rudovsky and Sosnov, awarding compensatory and punitive damages.[6] Following a grant of remittitur,[7] the case was settled on appeal on undisclosed terms.