Bar’s Bid for More Judges Survives Test

A landmark lawsuit by the Los Angeles County Bar Assn., which alleges that Gov. George Deukmejian has not appointed enough judges to give civil litigants meaningful access to courts, cleared an important preliminary hurdle Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge David V. Kenyon rejected a motion by the governor to dismiss it.

Kenyon’s action means that the lawsuit will proceed toward trial in Los Angeles federal court.

The Bar Assn. asked Kenyon to declare unconstitutional a state statute that calls for Los Angeles County to be provided with 224 Superior Court judges.

Called Insufficient

The association contends that that number of judges is insufficient and has resulted in a nearly five-year backlog of civil cases that effectively denies litigants access to the Superior Court.

In bids to have the lawsuit dismissed, Deukmejian, who appoints judges, and co-defendant March Fong Eu, who as secretary of state certifies their elections, argued that Kenyon had no jurisdiction because there is no constitutional right of access to courts to resolve civil disputes.

Two other defendants, state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), argued that, as individual legislators, they could not be held responsible for failure of the Legislature as a whole to fund more judgeships.

In rejecting both arguments, Kenyon noted that “none of the defendants dispute or question the factual underpinnings of plaintiffs’ lawsuit--that the near five-year delay in the civil docket of the Superior Court is causally connected to the alleged shortage of judges allocated to Los Angeles County, and that the delay in Los Angeles County is unparalleled in any other county in California.”

Supervisors Named

Also named in the suit is the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which shares responsibility with the state for funding judgeships.

Kenyon also approved a bid by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California to enter the lawsuit with a class-action complaint of its own against the Superior Court.

The ACLU, representing a class of more than 20,000 County Jail inmates, claims that the Superior Court, through inefficiency, is violating inmates’ constitutional rights to speedy disposition of criminal cases.

This litigation could be far-reaching. In agreeing to hear from the ACLU, for instance, Kenyon noted that the organization’s proposed complaint was “characterized by broad goals of reforming the entire Superior Court as it relates to criminal defendants.”

The Bar Assn. earlier removed the Superior Court as a defendant in its lawsuit after the court agreed to lease office space for retired judges and allow civil litigants to “rent” their services.

“We felt that basically that was all we could ask the judges to do, since they didn’t have the power to appoint judges,” said Larry Feldman, the association’s immediate past president.

Feldman said he was thrilled with Kenyon’s decision. “It allows us to move on to the merits of our position, which . . . no one really disputes--that civil litigants are being denied their right of access to the courts.”

Duane Peterson, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, which represents the governor, said attorneys there had not yet read Kenyon’s decision and would make no comment.