Superior Court Takes Case to Seaside Hotel : Move Is Designed to Clear Civil Backlog

Argue a case in a hotel room? Why not? “I’ll try a case in a playground?--as long as I’ve got a judge and jury, it’s OK with me,” attorney James R. Gillen said.

It has not yet come to that; juries are not about to take their seats on jungle gyms.

But in a first-of-its-kind effort to clear a choking backlog of civil cases in Los Angeles County, a jury is now hearing a lawsuit in Room 905 of the Bay View Plaza Holiday Inn at the ocean end of Pico Boulevard.

Gillen is representing the injured party, an unemployed Army veteran who was either --depending on which witnesses you believe--clobbered by a falling traffic signal or merely grazed by a street sign attached to the signal.

Remaining Defendant

After the manufacturer, supplier and installer all settled out of court, the City of Santa Monica was left as the sole defendant, facing damages that have yet to be determined if it is found to be at fault.

The case is not unusual, but this is not the usual courtroom scene. Robed in the majesty of his office, Judge Leonard Wolf presided in the hotel conference room from an ordinary table perched on a platform and draped in blue cloth.

Coffee brought by room service workers was available in an adjoining room. Lawyers carried their exhibits around the cramped room as jurors fidgeted on pink, hard-backed chairs, their eyes tempted by a view of waves, palm trees and wispy clouds over the distant headland of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

The arrangement has its advantages. Gillen said he once rented a room for himself in the hotel and took a nap and a shower during a lunch break.

The downstairs lobby provides yet more contrasts to an ordinary courthouse. Lawyers, litigants and loafers are nowhere to be seen, their places taken by hotel guests lingering over drinks or basking by the pool. A discreet note by the elevator advises that “Santa Monica Superior Court” is one of the day’s activities.

“I invited the jurors to bring their bathing suits, but they haven’t taken advantage of it yet,” said Wolf, who retired this year but has returned to the bench three times since then because of the heavy demand for judges.

The statistics are daunting. Only four of the Santa Monica court’s 15 judges routinely hear civil cases, but the number of cases ready for trial has averaged more than 500 this year.

Even Longer List

By comparison, there are 50 civil court judges at the Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles, where there is a waiting list of 1,000 to 1,200 cases.

“So you can see that although we are a small courthouse compared to the Central District, our workload is extremely heavy,” said Lynn Seabury, chief administrator for the Santa Monica Court.

Formally known as the West District of the Los Angeles Superior Court, the Santa Monica court covers an area that stretches from Malibu to Marina del Rey and east to La Cienega Boulevard, an area that produces a large number of lawsuits because of the concentration of legal talent in Century City, Beverly Hills and West Los Angeles.

With most civil lawsuits in Los Angeles County facing a delay of up to five years before they can be tried, administrators and judges have been looking for other ways to manage the flood of litigation, Seabury said.

“We’ll do whatever we can to keep a case from going to court,” he said.

Volunteer Attorneys

Under one program, 85 out of 345 cases scheduled to go to trial in Santa Monica in the next 10 months have been settled with the help of volunteer attorneys who act as referees, saving 488.5 days of court time, Seabury said.

Despite those efforts, trials have also had to be held on a stage at Santa Monica High School and in the City Council chambers at Santa Monica City Hall.

But it was not until last week that the Holiday Inn trial, which began in the courthouse, was moved to the hotel, where Room 905 costs the county about $100 a day.

Money has been available for renting conference rooms in hotels since 1988, but the Santa Monica case was the first in which both sides agreed to it.

“We just started putting them in the hotels out here because counsel wanted a Santa Monica jury and wanted to stay in Santa Monica, so they were willing to go anywhere, even to a hotel,” Seabury said.

San Diego Led Way

While this was a first in Los Angeles County, San Diego Superior Court has been holding trials in four rooms at the Hotel San Diego since March, said Ken Martone, acting executive officer of that court.

The Holiday Inn facility in Santa Monica is “makeshift, but it worked out well,” said Wolf, a 23-year veteran of the bench who headed the Santa Monica court as presiding judge before his retirement. “I’m the guinea pig,” he said.

While some of the jurors complained about their hard seats, others said they could see better and hear more of what was going on than they could in a courtroom.

All parties, especially the attorneys, found the room a bit cramped and lacking some of the dignity of a formal courtroom.

“It’s not just the dramatic aspect,” said Norman N. Hirata, an attorney for the City of Santa Monica who has mixed feelings about holding the trial in Room 905.

Quiet conferences at the bench are out of the question, so judge, attorneys and court reporter either have to move into an adjoining room, or send the jurors in and out.

Hirata said his colleague, Debra Sue Kanoff, enjoys the hotel more than he does.

“Debbie likes the more relaxed flavor. She likes to look at the guests with their bags and wonder where the people are coming from and where they’re going,” he said.