City Attorney Creates Units to Defend Police Against Lawsuits : Law enforcement: Hahn hopes to curb trend toward increasingly large jury awards against Los Angeles.

City Atty. James K. Hahn on Thursday announced the formation of special litigation units to defend major lawsuits against police officers and reduce increasingly large jury awards against the city.

At a news conference, Hahn also said his office is seeking to negotiate with lawyers representing Rodney G. King, who filed an $83-million claim against the city and later filed a federal lawsuit for a beating at the hands of police.

“Everyone recognizes that the beating of Mr. King was horrible and unjustified,” Hahn said. “On the other hand, his filing a claim for $83 million is clearly excessive, in my opinion.”

King’s attorney, Steven Lerman, responded in a statement that any judgment in the case “will be left up to a federal court jury to decide, and there is nothing that Mr. Hahn can do to take away the horror of that March 3, 1991, night.”

Hahn said the new units, coupled with a reorganization of the Civil Liability Division, will curb a trend toward increasingly large jury awards against the city in the wake of publicity surrounding the King beating and the Christopher Commission report on racism and brutality in the 8,300-member Los Angeles Police Department.

“We’re seeing increasingly large monetary judgments being awarded against the city--particularly in lawsuits involving the Police Department,” Hahn said. “My No. 1 priority has got to be to protect the pocketbook of taxpayers.”

The changes Hahn announced include creation of a special police litigation unit made up of attorneys and investigators to weed out and handle the most difficult lawsuits; establishment of a litigation support section to centralize review procedures for fighting claims and lawsuits, and reorganization of the Civil Liability Division to better monitor trial cases.

In addition, the city attorney’s office plans to open a branch office in Sherman Oaks later this month to handle personal-injury lawsuits filed in Santa Monica, Burbank and the San Fernando Valley.

Also at the news conference, Police Commissioner Jesse Brewer, a former assistant chief of police, said that improved communications between the Police Department and the city attorney’s office will help reduce major jury awards.

“The Christopher Commission has led some people to believe that all Los Angeles police officers are guilty of misconduct, and that is not the case,” Brewer said.

The city’s 40 liability lawyers for years have complained of unmanageable caseloads and cramped conditions in the division’s City Hall East headquarters, where attorneys are paired two to an office, often without the aid of computers, Hahn said.

As a result, “Sometimes we have just denied claims and refused to talk settlement because we have not had the time to really evaluate these cases,” Hahn said.

In addition, federal judges and magistrates have imposed monetary sanctions and criticized the city attorney’s office for failing to turn over information about Los Angeles police officers accused in civil suits of brutality or other misconduct. Attorneys for the city have argued in some cases that they have been unable to retrieve records because their files were disorganized.

City attorney’s records show that payouts in police lawsuits have soared from less than $1 million in 1980 to $9.1 million last year, plus plaintiff’s attorney fees.

Judgments against the city between January and August of this year, however, have totaled more than $14 million--including $8.75 million awarded by a Superior Court jury in April to a former Coliseum groundskeeper who was wounded by an off-duty police officer in 1987 and left a paraplegic.

After negotiations, plaintiff Adelaido Altamirano has agreed to accept a settlement offer of $5.5 million if the city attorney’s office drops its appeal of what remains the largest police-related award in Los Angeles history. The proposed settlement will be considered this month by the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee.