Both Sides Claim Victory in Welfare Decision : Courts: The county must continue to help the mentally ill in applying for aid, but it need not enhance the system, a judge rules.

In a decision that prompted both sides to claim victory, a Superior Court judge has ruled that Los Angeles County need not improve its welfare application system, but must keep in place changes made nearly four years ago to help the mentally ill through the process.

The ruling by Superior Court Judge Henry P. Nelson brings to an end a bitterly contested lawsuit in which attorneys for the homeless alleged that Los Angeles County intentionally designed its welfare application procedures to be so confusing that most mentally ill homeless people cannot navigate the system.

Currently, neither side is planning an appeal.

When the suit was filed in 1986, Superior Court Judge John L. Cole called the application process “a massive bureaucracy” and said he was appalled by some of the forms that applicants were required to fill out. Cole ordered the county to come up with a procedure to help the mentally ill through the maze.

Last week, at the conclusion of a costly trial, Judge Nelson ordered the county to keep that procedure in place, but refused to order the county to make further improvements that would help more mentally ill homeless people qualify for welfare benefits.

“There is no question the position of the county in defending itself has been vindicated,” said Nowland C. Hong, who represented the county in the lawsuit. Hong said the judge’s ruling was a complete victory for the county.

Hong is a partner in the law firm Parker, Millican, Clark, O’Hara & Samuelian, which has been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the county over the last year to fight the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the Legal Aid Foundation, which filed the suit, and the city attorney’s office, which joined in the case, have complained that Parker Millican over-litigated the case, unnecessarily running up huge legal bills that were charged to the county Department of Public Social Services.

City Atty. James K. Hahn also has claimed victory in the lawsuit, saying that Nelson’s ruling is the first in the nation that orders a county to maintain a system to identify mentally ill people and help them apply for welfare benefits.

Under the system, the county must identify mentally ill applicants when they enter a county welfare office and give them the assistance they need to apply for benefits. The county also must provide annual mental health training for its welfare workers.

Gary Blasi, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Foundation, said the ruling was “not a tremendous victory” because “the system misses a tremendous number of people.”

Even so, he said he was satisfied with the result. “They fought this case tooth and nail on the issue of whether they should have any obligation to have any system at all,” Blasi said.