County to Pay $6.3 Million in Voting Rights Lawsuit : Settlement: Out-of-court agreement on attorneys’ fees was accepted by plaintiffs in case, which led to the election of Gloria Molina as supervisor.

Los Angeles County agreed to pay $6.3 million in attorneys’ fees Thursday to the victorious plaintiffs in a voting rights lawsuit that led to the election of Gloria Molina as the first Latino supervisor this century, ending a legal battle that cost taxpayers $12.8 million.

The out-of-court settlement was offered by the Board of Supervisors, which discussed it in closed session earlier this week, and was accepted Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“I’m glad it’s over,” Supervisor Deane Dana said.

Richard Larson, legal director of MALDEF, said his organization will use its approximately $2 million share to press a number of lawsuits dealing with employment discrimination and immigrant rights. He said the groups had been seeking $8.1 million but accepted the lower amount to avoid further costly litigation.

The civil right groups filed a lawsuit in 1988 resulting in a court ruling last year that the all-Anglo county board discriminated against Latinos in drawing supervisorial district boundaries in 1981.

The decision, upheld in January by the U.S. Supreme Court, led to drawing of a new map that changed representation on the board for hundreds of thousands of county residents and ended conservative control of the panel.

Richard B. Dixon, the county’s chief administrative officer, said the $6.3 million will come from a $36-million fund set aside this year by the supervisors for legal expenses, including settlement of lawsuits, and should not worsen the county’s budget problems.

In addition to the $6.3 million paid to the plaintiffs, the county spent $6.3 million, mostly for private attorneys, fighting the case. The county also recently agreed to pay $199,500 to the U.S. Justice Department, another plaintiff.

The total bill is just short of the most ever spent by the county on a court case--$13.8 million to fight lawsuits brought by the owners of property damaged in Malibu’s Big Rock Mesa landslide in 1983.

The plaintiffs had sought about 2 1/2 times more than their hourly billings of 21 lawyers assigned to the three-year case. They argued that they were entitled to “fee enhancements” because of the importance of the case and the need to encourage private lawyers to take on similar cases.

The payment will be shared with private lawyers--including attorney Joaquin Avila, and the law firm of Loeb and Loeb--who assisted the plaintiffs.

No breakdown was available, but Robin Meadow, an attorney with Loeb and Loeb, said, “The division is going to be along the lines of the contribution of each organization in the lawsuit in terms of the amount of work put in . . .

“The lion’s share will go to ACLU and MALDEF.”

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People Special Contribution Fund, which also were a party to the case, also will receive a share.