New City Attorney Unit Cuts Police Litigation Payouts Nearly in Half

A special unit set up by the 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 full year of operation, the city attorney’s police litigation unit handled cases against individual police officers and the Los Angeles Police Department that resulted in $10.7 million in judgments and awards in 1993--down from $19.7 million in 1992 and $14.7 million in 1991, according to City Atty. James K. Hahn.

Attorneys in 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 restaurant in Sunland, who accused the 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 that they allowed the robbery to take place--the judge took the case away from a jury and ruled that the police shouldn’t 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 he said 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 claims of excessive use of force by officers, or allegations of 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 concerning police incidents rose from 585 in 1992 to 726 last year. Lawsuits ultimately filed against the city rose only slightly, from 226 to 246.

Hahn conceded that in some cases in the past, the city attorney’s office was so overwhelmed that the city ended up settling cases quickly, and perhaps for more money than necessary, for fear of losing even more if the case went to trial.

“We were, frankly, getting overwhelmed,” Hahn said. “We were concerned that we were not prepared as we should be, and perhaps pursuing settlements at figures higher than we should have held out for.”

Hahn reorganized his civil liability division in October, 1992, to create the special police litigation unit, and opened an office in Sherman Oaks to handle cases at the Van Nuys, North Valley, Santa Monica, Burbank and Glendale superior courts. He also increased the number of lawyers assigned to the division from 39 to 46, lowered the average caseload of the lawyers from 130 to about 50 and launched a program to fully computerize the division.

Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent, who heads the police litigation unit, said the unit’s lawyers now have a lot more time to battle opponents outside of court through the introduction of legal motions, and by doing more legal research.