Payouts Drop in Litigation Against Police : Law enforcement: Special unit established by city attorney’s office is better prepared to counter legal action against individual officers and the department, officials say.

A special unit set up by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office to handle lawsuits against police apparently has reversed years of spiraling litigation losses, cutting payouts to plaintiffs in its first full year of operation almost in half, city officials said Tuesday.

In its first year, the city attorney’s Police Litigation Unit handled cases against individual police officers and the department that resulted in $10.7 million in judgments and awards in calendar year 1993--down from $19.7 million in 1992 and $14.7 million in 1991, according to City Atty. James K. Hahn.

City attorneys within the unit went to trial in police cases 36 times during 1993, winning 27 of them.

One of the cases was a high-profile lawsuit filed by the manager of a McDonald’s in Sunland, who accused the Los Angeles Police Department’s controversial Special Investigation Section of watching as robbers broke into her restaurant at closing time and terrorized her.

In a surprise move--even though the SIS officers acknowledged they allowed the robbery to take place--the judge took the case away from a jury and ruled that the police should not be held liable for damages sought by the manager.

Hahn attributed much of the success in that case and other lawsuits to the creation of the unit, which has given city lawyers more time to work on cases and more resources, including police detectives who are handling the often time-consuming investigative work necessary to rebut claims. Many of the cases involved excessive use of force by officers, or negligence in protecting citizens.

“It’s the first time we’ve ever been able to bring a team approach to these high exposure cases,” Hahn said in an interview. “Our feeling now is that we are prepared on all our cases. We are not afraid to go to trial anymore for fear we are not prepared.”

In a memo to Hahn, Senior Assistant City Atty. Thomas C. Hokinson noted that judgments to plaintiffs dropped sharply, but said he was concerned that the number of claims received involving police incidents rose from 585 in 1992 to 726 last year. Lawsuits ultimately filed against the city rose only slightly, from 226 to 246.