73% of Court Clerks Join Sickout

There was order in the courts--even though there was no one to write down some judges’ orders Tuesday as more than two-thirds of Los Angeles County’s Superior Court clerks staged a sickout to protest stalled contract talks.

Countywide, 73% of the clerks and judicial assistants--277 out of 380--called in sick in a job action that sent court administrators scurrying to find fill-in help.

The hardest hit courthouse was in Santa Monica, where all 21 of the assigned clerks stayed home. At the San Fernando courthouse, all but three of 16 clerks were missing; in Long Beach, all but three of 17.

The figures at other courthouses varied from no clerks missing at the Lancaster courthouse to 47% absenteeism at the Downtown Criminal Courts Building and 79% at the Compton courthouse.

“I’m beginning to appreciate (my clerk’s) job a lot more,” said Van Nuys Judge Darlene Schempp, herself a former court clerk, as she struggled to take notes so that orders required for every court action could be completed later.

At the Criminal Courts Building, Judge Isabel R. Cohen was using the downtime between cases to transfer notes scribbled during a hearing for two men accused of a carjacking. The forms would normally be filled out by Cohen’s clerk, Joe Pulido.

Pulido had tried to assist Cohen by making her calendar accessible so she would not assign conflicting dates to cases, but he left some documents locked in filing cabinets and drawers.

Cohen couldn’t find the rubber stamp for dating documents, so she was writing in the date in longhand and signing it.

For all the inconvenience in criminal cases, civil judges had it worse. Some of their courts were left clerkless so criminal courtrooms could receive priority from the small pool of fill-ins. In criminal court, some suspects can be released if their cases are not heard within a prescribed period.

The job action was expected to affect the filing of divorce cases, restraining order requests and other matters.

Outside Judge Martha Goldin’s civil courtroom in Downtown Los Angeles, a handwritten sign read: “No Clerk--File All Papers in Dept. 2.”

The sickout is planned to last through Thursday, according to David P. Bradford, president of the Los Angeles County Superior Court Clerks Assn. Arbitration in the dispute is scheduled to begin Friday.

The job action came after two years of negotiations between the county and the clerks union broke down last month. The clerks, who earn a maximum annual salary of about $43,000, have not had a pay increase in three years.

Although some judges reported being bogged down by paperwork normally handled by clerks, others were not inconvenienced. For the most part, trials and hearings continued as usual, with managers and other workers filling in for the missing clerks.

Judge Gary Klausner, assistant presiding judge for the Superior Court, said the sickout had little significant impact on the flow of cases through the court system, the largest in the nation. Clerks record judges’ orders, keep track of their calendars, swear in witnesses and read aloud jury verdicts.

Times staff writers John Wagner, Kathleen Kelleher, Phil Sneiderman and Bob Pool contributed to this story.