Costs Mount in Suits Involving Council Members : Government: Critics say ‘vanity’ actions win public approval but accomplish little. Warner Ridge, Sunshine Canyon Landfill and Medfly cases are examples.

The city of Los Angeles ran up more than $700,000 in expenses in its protracted legal fight over Warner Ridge, a battle triggered by Councilwoman Joy Picus’ bid to mend a politically perilous rift with her Woodland Hills constituents, records show.

The two-year courtroom clash, whose cost is documented in public records obtained by The Times, ended in January with the city capitulating and agreeing to let the developer build an office complex very similar to the one Picus had fought so hard to block.

The settlement also requires the city to provide the developer $4 million in municipal services for free.

But the Warner Ridge litigation--initiated by the developers to win in court what they had lost at City Hall when Picus’ political interests shaped planners’ handling of their proposal--is only the most prominent example of what some in the city attorney’s office have nicknamed “vanity lawsuits.”

The trademark of such lawsuits, observers said, is that while they may earn their sponsors kudos in the court of public opinion, they accomplish little in court, especially considering their cost.

“Maybe it’s not totally frivolous, but there’s a wink and nod that says it’s being filed to satisfy some councilman’s political agenda,” said one city official familiar with the phenomenon who asked not to be identified.

Other lawsuits cited as examples include the city’s litigation to block the proposed expansion of the Sunshine Canyon Landfill above Granada Hills and a lawsuit pressed by Councilman Joel Wachs in 1990 to stop aerial Medfly spraying.

The landfill case has cost the city $465,000 so far, and the bill for the Medfly lawsuit has been $705,000. Both lawsuits are still alive, and neither has achieved a victory in court.

This past Thursday, City Atty. James K. Hahn urged the council to show more restraint in picking its legal fights.

“Just because we’re mad doesn’t mean we’re right,” Hahn bluntly told the council’s budget committee as it reviewed a list of such costly lawsuits.

His remark was seen by observers as a criticism of the council, which has the authority to initiate litigation.

“I know the city attorney has to file lawsuits when the council wants that done, many times to deal with the needs of their constituents--and I don’t have any problem with that,” Hahn said later. “It’s just that we need to do more before we sue. My message is that we have to analyze the risks and costs more carefully.”

Hahn refused to criticize any particular case and he declined to use the term vanity lawsuits .

Although it is a convenient shorthand, the term’s application to any individual lawsuit is a matter of perspective. A lawsuit that to one person may seem politically driven and frivolous, to another may be an appropriate pursuit of the public interest.

Either way, it’s taxpayers who foot the bill.

The Warner Ridge case arose when Picus, under heavy pressure in 1988 from homeowners as she approached a reelection campaign, moved to block a plan to build a half-dozen office towers on the 21.5-acre Warner Ridge site.

In 1990, the developers sued the city for $100 million, alleging that Picus’ motive in blocking their office project was political. Picus, in sworn depositions, conceded that the expected political benefit weighed heavily in her decision to oppose the project. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, and later the judges who ruled on preliminary issues in the case, commented on the city’s legally reckless maneuvers in blocking the project.

When it became increasingly obvious that the city would probably lose in court, making it liable for huge damages, Picus’ council colleagues pushed for a settlement.

“We’re going to have to be more respectful of the law and of property owners’ rights,” Councilman Hal Bernson said of the lesson learned from the Warner Ridge case. “And we can’t allow ourselves to be run by the homeowners and those who cry the loudest.”

The $700,000 bill for the Warner Ridge lawsuit includes the salaries of four city attorneys, some of whom spent more than half their working hours on the case. Based on salary information and city-supplied estimates of how much time each attorney spent on the case, The Times calculated that lawyers for the case cost about $150,000.

Miscellaneous litigation expenses added $235,000 to the lawsuit’s cost, according to records provided to The Times under a state Public Records Act request. Those costs went for reproducing documents, paying witnesses and marshal’s fees and hiring court reporters and real estate specialists.

The city also has appropriated $30,000 to hire the law firm of Hall & Phillips to help assess its legal options and to analyze the effect of the case’s outcome.

The city’s Planning Department spent another $18,000 on the case and has earmarked $319,000 to pay for two environmental reports on the proposed project that related to the litigation.

On top of those costs, the city agreed to exempt the developer from $4 million in city fees for processing its land-use and building permits. Normally, the city would be reimbursed for these costs.

The developer’s victory in the Warner Ridge lawsuit also has already inspired three similar lawsuits against the city, including one by MCA Inc., the media giant that owns Universal City. Those lawsuits also claim that the plaintiffs have been denied development rights.

In response to a request for comment about the city’s handling of the Warner Ridge office proposal and the cost of the lawsuit that resulted, a spokeswoman for Picus said she had followed the direction of the city attorney’s office.

Picus has proudly asserted in the past that her conduct on the Warner Ridge issue was properly governed by a desire to represent the wishes of her constituents.

“I don’t think it’s possible to go too far” on behalf of constituents, she said in an interview on the subject last year. “I worked very, very hard on behalf of my constituents” to block the development.

The city’s lawsuit against Browning-Ferris Industries, which operates the Sunshine Canyon Landfill, also is widely seen by some city officials as a vanity lawsuit.

In 1991, Bernson was running for reelection against a half-dozen challengers who charged that he was too pro-business. But that image of Bernson was somewhat redrawn when the city, at the embattled lawmaker’s behest, filed suit to block an unpopular expansion plan for the dump that was approved by the county.

Bernson declined to comment for this article. He has said that an expansion of the landfill would harm residents of surrounding neighborhoods and that Browning-Ferris has, in the past, flouted environmental safeguards at a now-closed landfill inside the city.

The councilman narrowly won reelection with 51.1% but polled 60% of the vote in the 19 Granada Hills precincts where the landfill issue was important.

A Superior Court ruling in the lawsuit last month may delay the landfill project, but only for a few months. And the city has earmarked $465,000 for the legal fees charged by Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a legal firm with powerful political connections.

The Sunshine Canyon lawsuit also has paralleled a personal battle between Bernson and Browning-Ferris.

In 1989, Bernson suspected that Browning-Ferris had produced a potentially embarrassing dossier about his foreign travels that was sent to reporters. This year, Bernson filed a $40-million defamation lawsuit against the landfill company over the dossier.

A pending lawsuit filed two years ago to block the state’s aerial Medfly spraying program is also considered by insiders to have been a legal long shot but a political sure thing.

Leading the emotional attack against the spraying was Wachs, whose east San Fernando Valley constituents were among those being sprayed with malathion.

Amid widespread media coverage, Wachs got the council to pass a law blocking the use of city airports by the helicopter fleets applying the chemical--a measure quickly invalidated by the courts. Then in February, 1990, the lawmaker got the city to sue the state to stop the spraying.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge rejected the city’s request for a temporary restraining order and state officials dropped the program in November, 1990.

So far, $705,000 has been paid to the private law firm of Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe to represent the city.

The lawsuit is on hold in the event that the state spraying program begins again, said Deputy City Atty. Keith Pritsker.

“The state will never admit that any of our legal action had anything to do with them stopping the spraying, but we think it did,” said Greg Nelson, Wachs’ chief deputy. “Our legal action and the public outcry created tremendous headaches for them and caused them to rethink their program.”

Critics say there is little that can be done to check such lawsuits.

“It’s always easier to sue with someone else’s money,” noted Gideon Kanner, a retired Loyola University law professor who advised the developer in the Warner Ridge lawsuit.

“The reason there’s vanity lawsuits is that there’s no one to say ‘Don’t do it,’ ” said Robert McMurry, chief attorney for the Warner Ridge developers.

“Council members are all part of the club, and no one tells another what to do.”

Benjamin Reznik, a Sherman Oaks attorney for developers, said the problem is that City Hall politicians don’t have to balance the merits of a case against the potential litigation costs. As a result, some of the city’s litigation “borders on being reckless and certainly results in lawsuits undertaken in conscious disregard of taxpayers’ bucks,” Reznik said. “Warner Ridge is the big one, but there are lots of little ones all the time.”

Costs of Three Major Lawsuits

These are prominent examples of what some in the city attorney’s office have nicknamed “vanity lawsuits” that will cost taxpayers $1.87 million.

Lawsuit Cost Council Instigator Medfly spraying $705,000 Joel Wachs Warner Ridge development $700,000 Joy Picus Sunshine Canyon Landfill $465,000 Hal Bernson