City Hires Private Lawyer to Review Claims Filed in Sex Scandal : City Hall: The move suggests the council is taking a more cautious approach to the case than first indicated.

Adding a new chapter and more public expense to the San Diego City Hall sex-and-hush-money scandal, the City Council decided Tuesday to hire a private lawyer to review how to handle claims totaling more than $5 million filed against the city by the case’s two principals.

Concerned over a potential conflict of interest involving City Atty. John Witt’s office, the council voted unanimously in closed session to hire San Diego lawyer Michael Weaver to examine the claims filed by former Planning Director Robert Spaulding and former planner Susan M. Bray.

The council’s decision to hire Weaver, who has handled legal malpractice and wrongful-termination suits--and who has opposed Spaulding attorney Michael Aguirre in other cases--came as at least a mild surprise within City Hall.

Previously, most council members have dismissed the claims as primarily a public-relations ploy with, as one put it, “more chutzpah than legal merit” to them, and have indicated strong opposition to offering money to settle the claims--or even to seriously consider them.

Tuesday’s decision, however, suggests that the council is taking a more cautious approach to the case than those initial remarks showed.

After the closed-door meeting, council members said the decision to hire Weaver was spawned by uncertainty over whether conflicts of interest could prevent Witt’s office from advising the council on the claims and representing the city in any litigation.

Because Witt’s own performance, as well as that of some of his staff, is a central issue in the case--in which he could be called to testify, should the dispute ever reach court--he advised the council that it would be “in everybody’s best interests” to retain an outside attorney to handle the matter, Mayor Maureen O’Connor explained.

“You can’t be the attorney in a case where you’re called to testify,” Witt added in an interview.

Weaver will be paid $150 an hour and is expected to report back to the council within about two weeks, Witt said. Other lawyers in Weaver’s law firm--Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton--are also expected to work on the case, with his partners receiving the same hourly rate and his associates to be paid a lesser fee.

Tuesday’s decision marks the second time the council has hired an outside attorney to investigate the Spaulding-Bray case.

In May, shortly after the scandal broke, the council hired special counsel Josiah Neeper to probe city officials’ involvement in a previously secret payment that Bray received to settle a sexual-harassment claim she filed against the city after her affair with Spaulding.

In settling Bray’s claim in March, then-City Manager John Lockwood secretly agreed to pay the former Gaslamp Quarter planner $98,531 and chose not to inform the council of the settlement in order to prevent it from becoming public. When details of the secret deal leaked to the news media two months later, an outraged council accepted Spaulding’s forced resignation.

Last month, Spaulding, arguing that he lost his $108,000-a-year job because of malpractice by Witt’s office, filed a claim seeking $2.75 million in damages from the city. One day later, Bray filed a similar claim seeking at least $2.35 million from the city, charging that disclosure of the nearly $100,000 payment ruined her personal and professional reputations.

If the city rejects those claims, the attorneys for Spaulding and Bray could then file lawsuits.

Spaulding attorney Aguirre, however, said he interprets the council’s decision to hire Weaver as a sign that the city is interested in settling the case without going to court.

“I see this as a very positive step toward a mutually satisfactory settlement,” Aguirre said. “I have great respect for Mike Weaver. If there’s anyone in San Diego who can figure out a way out of the mess everybody’s gotten into in this thing, he’s probably the one.”