City Stands Firm on $36,000 Offer to Scuffle Victim : Litigation: The council rejects a request for $75,000 for a 72-year-old indigent injured by police in a Skid Row incident.

Fearful of setting a precedent that could drain city coffers, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday refused to increase a $36,000 offer to settle an excessive force lawsuit filed by a 72-year-old blind and deaf indigent injured in a Skid Row scuffle with police.

The plaintiff’s Beverly Hills lawyer and two council members have argued that the sum would not adequately compensate the man, who said he suffered six broken ribs and complete loss of sight in his right eye because of the incident.

Councilman Joel Wachs, who wanted to settle for at least $60,000, said he pleaded with his colleagues to delay action on the matter because he could not attend Friday’s council meeting, having been appointed to represent the city at the funeral of a slain police officer.

“They went ahead and pushed it through, which is shocking,” Wachs said, “a total disgrace that sickens me.”

The council, in a 9-1 vote, sided with an assistant city attorney who argued that the plaintiff’s lawyer had agreed to settle the case for $36,000 in May, one day before it was scheduled for trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

“If we start second-guessing the city attorney’s office by changing settlements upward we will open up a floodgate,” Councilman Nate Holden said. “The 4,000 people a year who settle with the city for $5,000 or less will start lobbying their council members for more money.”

Under the settlement approved by the council, Raymond Hewitt will receive $12,498 in a special needs trust fund that will not jeopardize his welfare payments. His lawyer, Gregory Yates, will get $12,000 in fees and $11,502 for costs related to the case.

Hewitt’s social worker, Matilda Nelson, called the settlement “a shame. I was hoping the city had a bigger heart.”

“Nate’s wrong, this wouldn’t open up a floodgate,” said Nelson, who has cared for Hewitt since 1988. “After all, how often do you find a 72-year-old blind and deaf man who was beat up by police?

“He can’t do very much with $12,000 because he can’t see, he can’t hear and he can’t get around by himself,” Nelson said. “About all he can do is smoke six cartons of cigarettes a month.”

In his lawsuit, Hewitt said he could neither see nor hear two officers who were shouting at him to back away from a drug bust on March 1, 1991.

Hewitt, who was living in a Skid Row hotel, kept walking toward Officers Edward Waschak and Ronald Bair, who had detained three drug suspects at the corner of 5th and Towne streets.

Waschak pushed Hewitt against a patrol car, and Bair assisted by striking his left side with his fist, according to a report by the city attorney’s office.

Two weeks later, he was admitted to Queen of Angels Hospital, where he was treated for the fractured ribs and complete blindness in his right eye.

Yates at first demanded $300,000 to settle the lawsuit. But on May 18, he offered to settle for $36,000 out of concern that Hewitt’s severe disabilities and the lack of independent witnesses--the drug suspects were never arrested or identified by police--would not play well with a jury.

The city attorney’s office agreed and presented the offer to the City Council for final approval on July 21. Instead, the council deferred action because Wachs and Councilwoman Rita Walters questioned the adequacy of the settlement.

Buoyed by the unexpected support from the two council members, Yates on Monday sent a letter to Assistant City Atty. Thomas Hokinson advising that he was requesting $75,000.

The additional money would go toward the special needs trust fund for Hewitt, who entered a Los Angeles convalescent home a year ago, Yates said.

In a telephone interview Friday, Yates said he will argue at a Superior Court hearing on the settlement scheduled for Sept. 9 that he should not be bound by the May 18 agreement.

“I agreed to a proposed settlement based upon certain restrictions. One of them was that it had to be acted on by the council within a certain amount of time,” Yates said. “Since it wasn’t approved within the requisite time, the offer doesn’t stand.”