SEAL BEACH : City Rejects Claim Over Alleged Quotas

The City Council this week rejected a $10-million claim filed in July by an attorney who sued the city over what he said was an illegal quota system for arrests and citations.

The claim rejected Monday was a prelude to an amendment attorney Ernest J. Franceschi Jr. plans to add to an existing lawsuit against the city. Franceschi filed a class-action suit against the city in July, seeking to have fines repaid to all people arrested or cited by Seal Beach police since Jan. 1.

Franceschi’s suit, which also seeks $20 million in punitive damages, was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles under the federal Civil Rights and the Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) acts.

In the suit, Franceschi accuses the city of violating racketeering laws by using extortion in the form of requiring officers to reach certain levels of arrests or citations. City officials have denied that the Police Department has used a quota system and say a clause added to the police performance standards in January has been misinterpreted.

City Manager Jerry L. Bankston said the alleged quota policy is merely a clause added to existing performance standards on a six-month trial basis and is being evaluated.

That clause requires officers to perform as well as their peers in terms of the average number of field interviews and investigations, as well as citations and arrests. But as one of a long list of standards--which also include requirements such as wearing clean uniforms and keeping equipment in working order--it is legal, Bankston said.

“The vehicle code cited (by Franceschi) says no state or local agencies employing peace officers shall use the number of arrests or citations issued as the sole criteria for promotion, demotion, dismissal or earning of any benefit provided by the agency,” Bankston said. “Our performance standards have no less than 30 to 35 categories, and field activity is only one.”

In a $60-million lawsuit against Huntington Beach, Franceschi had accused the city of racketeering charges related to a speed trap. That case was dismissed last month. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson ruled that government entities are immune from punitive damages as outlined in the RICO law, but he also said state law may be applicable in such lawsuits.

Franceschi appealed Wilson’s decision but is dropping the RICO charges in his lawsuit against Seal Beach. Instead, he is seeking to add another cause of action under state law to the pending federal case.

“Judge Wilson now has the Seal Beach case. We’re going to take him at his word when he says the state law is the remedy,” Franceschi said.

Franceschi said he will file a separate lawsuit in state court if Wilson denies his motion to add his claims that Seal Beach violated state law by using a quota system.

“He certainly has his rights within the law to do so,” Bankston said. “I don’t consider the case having any merit, and I regret the expenditure of staff time and attorney fees in having to defend against this type of action.”

Bankston said the city has spent about $25,000 in attorney fees and expects to spend more.