City Hall vs. City Hall: Attorneys Protest Caseloads, Understaffing : Law: The lawyers who defend Los Angeles go on the offensive. They complain that severe manpower shortages keep them from doing their jobs while draining the city treasury.

Assistant City Atty. Victoria Chaney defends the city against lawsuits stemming from auto accidents, police shootings and sidewalk slips and falls.

But these days, Chaney and many of her colleagues in the city attorney’s civil liability division are fighting City Hall themselves.

They say their unit is so understaffed that the city is being fined frequently for missed court appearances. They say their office is so under-equipped that they are forced to buy their own $2,000-plus personal computers to manage their paperwork.

And they say such problems have contributed to skyrocketing civil liability payouts by the city--which have more than doubled in fiscal 1989-90 to $34 million.

“I had seven cases set for trial between April 30 and June 4,” Chaney said in an interview this week. “I tried three of the seven and we had to settle the other ones. . . . One of the considerations for settlement in those cases was the fact there wasn’t a body to try them.”

On Tuesday, 28 of the unit’s 35 lawyers released a petition declaring that they “can no longer competently and adequately represent the best interests” of the city. Their public outcry set off sparks in City Hall.

City Atty. James K. Hahn responded by sending a letter to Mayor Tom Bradley in which he asserted, “All things considered, attorneys in the office perform outstanding work.”

But Hahn, who has unsuccessfully sought additional city funding for the unit, also acknowledged that the attorneys’ claims are “a serious admission.” In his letter, Hahn wrote that he would review the unit’s caseload to determine whether a major reorganization is needed.

In interviews this week, several lawyers in the liability unit insisted that besides any reorganization, additional staffing and equipment are essential.

Assistant City Atty. Philip J. Sugar, for example, said he is convinced the city lost a recent $1.5-million jury verdict in a police shooting trial because the liability unit, which averages 140 cases per lawyer, is severely overburdened.

Sugar, a 15-year office veteran and one of the unit’s four supervisors, said he was assigned to take over the case a mere two weeks before trial because the attorney who had been handling it was in the middle of another trial. That lawyer did not have enough time to prepare the case, Sugar said, thus forcing Sugar to go to trial without adequate medical expert witnesses.

“That’s a case where I directly blame our loss on lack of preparation,” Sugar said. “It never got done simply because the attorney handling it was in one trial after another, and just under the crush of time did not get to those items.”

John Emerson, Hahn’s executive assistant, confirmed Friday that the city was unable to call medical experts because Sugar’s predecessor had missed the court’s deadline for identifying his expert witnesses. But, Emerson added, the city probably would have lost anyway because “it was a tough case to begin with.” Court testimony indicated that a burglary suspect, Ronnie Melgar, was shot in the back while fleeing from a police officer and suffered brain damage.

The liability lawyers also complain that cramped conditions in the division’s City Hall East headquarters exacerbate their problems. Many of the attorneys are paired two to an office, share secretaries and have no conference rooms available to privately interview witnesses. In the hallways, boxes of legal documents are piled five feet high--and the lawyers routinely warn visitors about the boxes to avoid falls and additional lawsuits.

“It is an absolute, screaming joke,” said Deputy City Atty. George Lowry. “If this was a private business, it would be belly up and it would be sued on a regular basis by the client.”

Chaney, a 12-year city attorney, is one of seven staff attorneys who have purchased personal computer systems to help manage their workloads.

Before last spring, she said, she had been able to squeak by without a computer because her secretary had a memory typewriter that could spit out boilerplate legal briefs at the punch of a button. But when she was assigned a new secretary, Chaney said, the typewriter was transferred to a secretary elsewhere who had more seniority.

“I had a large amount of paper that goes out, and she couldn’t get the work out,” Chaney said.

The lawyers say their problems have intensified since “fast track” court reforms were instituted in 1988. With Superior Court cases coming to trial within 14 months, rather than five years, the liability lawyers must be in court more often and file legal briefs more frequently.

But because of their heavy workloads, they say, they routinely miss court appearances or filing deadlines. The results are court sanctions, which have varied from $150 to $4,000 and come out of the city budget.

Emerson estimated that the liability section has been fined $15,000 in the last year, but other attorneys told The Times that the figure is higher.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jerry K. Fields says sanctions are assessed “to the city all the time.”

“From the judge’s standpoint . . . if nobody shows up (for the city) . . . but the other side shows up, I order sanctions,” Fields said.

Fields and several other judges, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the civil liability unit’s problems are readily apparent in their courtrooms.

“In pretrial, you never see the same city attorney twice,” Fields said. “They send someone over for a conference who doesn’t know a damn thing about anything.”

The judges also said the city’s basic strategy in liability suits may be placing an added burden on staff resources.

“The city’s settlement philosophy is: ‘We don’t settle anything unless we can steal the case,’ ” Fields said. “And that increases the number of cases that go to trial, and the number of cases going through the pretrial procedure.”

In recent months, the city has been forced to pay out settlements in cases ranging from police shootings to injuries suffered by a man who slipped on a sidewalk along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

One particularly expensive case was that of Jerry Eugene Wright Jr., who died in 1979 after being attacked and robbed on a Crenshaw-area street. In 1985, a Superior Court jury issued a $2.1-million verdict based on testimony that city police and paramedics mistook Wright for a drug addict and tried to arrest him rather than treat him. Wright, who was suffering an acute attack of sickle-cell anemia, slipped into a coma and died.

After a series of appeals, the City Council finally approved a $3.1-million award, including interest, to Wright’s parents earlier this month.

Another $3-million settlement was recently reached in a case that had not yet come to trial--a controversial 1988 police drug raid of two apartment houses near the Coliseum.

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said the Dalton Avenue case, in which police were accused of punching, kicking, choking and insulting residents, is one in which higher staffing levels would have made no difference. “We’re not settling Dalton Avenue because our attorneys are incompetent, but because we were going to get our butts kicked in court,” the councilman said.

“Making black citizens whistle the ‘Andy Griffith’ theme song when they are marched off to the police station is not exactly a legitimate mistake made under the pressure of the job.”

Yaroslavsky, who is chairman of a City Council committee that approves liability settlements, said this week that he will seek a full council review of the liability division controversy. But rather than additional staffing, he said, the city should consider cracking down on employees whose actions lead to the costly lawsuits.

“What we need to do is what most people do in the real world. When an employee makes a mistake that costs the city $3 million, the employee ought to go, especially when the mistake is malicious,” he said.

Since 1986, City Atty. Hahn has repeatedly petitioned the City Council for additional staff and office equipment. But Yaroslavsky says the council has already increased Hahn’s staff by 50% since 1984.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates also recently wrote to Mayor Bradley, asking that six attorneys be hired to staff a new sub-unit that would deal exclusively with police litigation.

“We need to do things better, and Dalton Avenue is a good example,” explained LAPD spokesman Cmdr. William Booth. “But we need more effective legal support too.”

The liability division attorneys intend to continue their public pressure but are not optimistic that they will succeed in getting additional resources.

“There really is no job action you can take as such,” Sugar said. “I represent city police officers facing punitive action. What do I do? Not show up in court?”

Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen contributed to this story.

LOS ANGELES LEGAL PAYOUTS

The city of Los Angeles paid $34 million in legal settlements and jury awards in the fiscal year 1989-90. Since July 1, the payouts have totaled almost $20 million for the following lawsuits.

PLAINTIFF: Continental Heller Corp. REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Dispute over sewer construction contract AMOUNT: $11.7 mil.* PLAINTIFF: Jerry Eugene Wright Jr. REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Wrongful death of Wright, who died of attack of sickle-cell anemia, after police and paramedics mistook him for a drug addict AMOUNT: $3.1 mil. PLAINTIFF: Mutual Life Ins. REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Business tax refund to life insurance firms due to state Supreme Court ruling AMOUNT: $2.5 mil.** PLAINTIFF: Paul Hutcherson REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Injury arising from alleged medical mishandling by police officers AMOUNT: $500,000 PLAINTIFF: Onie Palmer REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Attorney fees in addition to last year’s $3.4-million settlement for damages during a drug raid on Dalton Street AMOUNT: $465,464 PLAINTIFF: Drucilla Hardy et al REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Wrongful death caused by alleged negligence involving city sanitation truck AMOUNT: $453,498 PLAINTIFF: Baxter Ward REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Property damage from the construction of a storm drain near the property AMOUNT: $157,000 PLAINTIFF: Karen Kennedy REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: False arrest and illegal strip search AMOUNT: $138,220 PLAINTIFF: Mark Snodgrass REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Alleged assault by police AMOUNT: $100,000 PLAINTIFF: R. Christine Hershey & Susan Van Horn REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Property damage from blockage in city storm drain AMOUNT: $68,000 PLAINTIFF: Steve Martin REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Slipped and fell on the Hollywood Walk of Fame sidewalk AMOUNT: $57,703 PLAINTIFF: Stewart Davis REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Motorcycle accident caused by pothole AMOUNT: $55,000 PLAINTIFF: Adam Kuklin REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Injuries from fall at the Van Nuys/Sherman Oaks Recreational Center basketball court AMOUNT: $50,000 PLAINTIFF: Rafaela Hernandez REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Injured in traffic accident while being transported in a paramedic vehicle AMOUNT: $45,000 PLAINTIFF: James Greer REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Vehicle struck from front by a sanitation truck AMOUNT: $40,000 PLAINTIFF: Alfred Bent REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Collision with police vehicle AMOUNT: $40,000 PLAINTIFF: Majid Honarvar REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Collision with sanitation truck AMOUNT: $37,500 PLAINTIFF: Charles Moorehead REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Wrongful death involving collision with ambulance AMOUNT: $36,000 PLAINTIFF: Jeffrey Rosen REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Bicycle accident caused by tire catching between bars of a storm drain gate AMOUNT: $35,000 PLAINTIFF: Rosina Gutierrez REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Wrongful death from police shooting AMOUNT: $35,000 PLAINTIFF: Cary Quashen REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Traffic accident caused by pothole AMOUNT: $32,500 PLAINTIFF: Pamela Lisi REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Vehicle struck from rear by a sanitation truck AMOUNT: $30,000 PLAINTIFF: Cynthia Exum REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Discrimination complaint by aide to Councilman Robert Farrell AMOUNT: $26,095 PLAINTIFF: Deborah Elliott REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Vehicle collision arising from obstructed stop sign AMOUNT: $25,000 PLAINTIFF: Saul Morrison REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Rear-ended by city sanitation truck AMOUNT: $22,707 PLAINTIFF: Victor Mendieta REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Collision with police emergency vehicle AMOUNT: $17,515 PLAINTIFF: Francisco Gayton REASON FOR SETTLEMENT OR AWARD: Police officers’ use of force AMOUNT: $17,500 Compiled by Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen

* From the Sewer Construction and Maintenance fund ** From the business tax refund account.

Source: Finance and Revenue Committee of City Council.