City Officials Liable to Pay Damages, High Court Rules

In a setback for the Los Angeles City Council in a dispute over a Sunland police shooting, the Supreme Court on Monday let stand a ruling that elected lawmakers can be forced to pay damages personally for official actions, such as rescuing officers from financial judgments in police brutality suits.

Without comment or dissent, the justices refused to hear the Los Angeles city attorney’s argument that local lawmakers are entitled to “absolute immunity” from such damage suits.

In March, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled that, while legislators cannot be sued for passing laws, they can be held personally liable for decisions that are “administrative or executive in nature.” The decision cleared the way for Los Angeles City Council members to be sued for using city funds to pay court damages assessed for brutality against former Police Chief Daryl Gates and nine police officers.

The decision stemmed from a 1990 incident in which a team of officers from the elite Special Investigations Section gunned down four robbers who had just held up a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland. Four relatives of the robbers sued Gates and the officers, contending that the police shot them without provocation.

The high court did not issue a written ruling endorsing the appeals court decision, nor has the suit against the Los Angeles council members gone to trial. Still, Monday’s court action puts lawmakers on notice that they have to pay from their own pockets if their actions violate constitutional rights.

“I think this is going to have a long-term impact on governing bodies,” said Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who voted for the payment and is a defendant in the suit. Elected officials will have to think twice before getting involved in volatile disputes, such as police brutality cases, he said.

Attorney Stephen Yagman--who represents the plaintiffs in the Sunland suit and has been involved in numerous cases against the LAPD--cheered the court’s action.

“This is the most significant police brutality decision ever rendered because it’s the first one in which elected officials have been put personally at risk for police brutality,” he said in a phone interview from New York.

“It’s the first decision that will provide a real incentive for the political hacks who run the city of Los Angeles to get off their butts and do something about the awful LAPD.”

“They are trapped,” Yagman said of the 10 Los Angeles City Council members facing the damage suit. “They have ratified a policy of using excessive force. Now the noose is around their collective neck, and it’s getting tighter.”

In the Sunland case, a jury handed down a $44,000 verdict against Gates and the nine officers. In reaction, the City Council voted to pay the damages for Gates and the officers. Yagman then filed a new suit arguing that the council’s action amounted to condoning police brutality and asking for unspecified damages from the council members personally.

Although he was an outspoken critic of Gates, Yaroslavsky called the incident “a classic case where an officer should not have been asked to” pay punitive damages.

The police became involved in a shootout with armed robbers fleeing the scene of a crime, Yaroslavsky said. “What could have been the malice?”

At the time, members of the controversial SIS squad said they refrained from interrupting the robbery for fear of jeopardizing a manager being held hostage in the restaurant. Critics contend that the SIS had tracked the four robbers for some time, holding back to build a stronger case against them.

“It’s a tough call,” Yaroslavsky said. “Do you go in and try to break it up and in the process, risk women and children? Or do you let them carry out the robbery in the hopes they won’t hurt anybody? . . . It’s one of the reasons I’m not a police officer.”

The suit is awaiting trial. City attorneys hoped to have it dismissed in preliminary motions but instead have suffered a series of stunning reversals.

In general, the Supreme Court has said that lawmakers are entitled to “absolute immunity . . . in their legislative functions.” But in a pair of rulings siding with Yagman, federal judges in California have concluded that lawmakers are not immune from damage claims in certain circumstances.

First, U. S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts in Los Angeles said that the 10 council members who voted to shield Gates and the other officers were not “dealing with legislation which will affect the public at large,” but rather were taking one side in a legal dispute over police brutality. By doing so, the council members could be “giving complete license for bad-faith acts” by the police, the judge said, and therefore they can be held liable for their actions.

In March, the U. S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction covers the entire West, affirmed Letts’ decision and ruled that lawmakers are not entitled to “a cloak of absolute immunity” when they “perform an administrative, not a legislative, act.”

City Atty. James K. Hahn appealed to the high court, arguing that this rule, if allowed to stand, could “chill” elected officials in the exercise of their duties. But the high court issued a one-line order Monday dismissing the appeal.

Lawyers who represent local governments said that Monday’s high court decision will frighten elected representatives.

“Particularly in the small jurisdictions where you have the real citizen-legislators, this will have a profound impact,” said attorney Timothy Coates, who filed a brief on behalf of city and county officials in 18 California jurisdictions urging the high court to intervene in the case.

While lawyers know of no instance in which elected officials have been forced to pay damages, they say that there has been “an explosion of litigation” naming elected officials.

The case against the Los Angeles council members now moves to trial.

Donald Vincent, supervising deputy city attorney, said that he will ask Letts to rule that council members are entitled to “qualified immunity” from the damage claim on grounds that they acted in good faith and without malice.

But Yagman said he will present evidence showing that the council routinely paid huge damage claims against police officers, which should lead to a large damage verdict against members. If so, the council members could appeal the verdict to the 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco and to the U. S. Supreme Court.

Savage reported from Washington and Berger reported from Los Angeles.

History of Case That Prompted Ruling

Feb. 12, 1990: Four men break into a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland, forcing manager Robbin L. Cox to open the safe at gunpoint. Despite a 911 call from Cox, officers with the LAPD’s Special Investigation Section, already outside the restaurant, decline to move in. When the robbers emerge to make their getaway, the officers open fire, allegedly after one of the men points a gun at them. Three of the men are killed and one seriously wounded in a barrage of 23 shotgun blasts and 12 rounds fired from the officers’ handguns. The robbers’ weapons are later found to be pellet guns. The dead men are identified as Herbert Burgos, 27; Jesus Arango, 25, and Javier Trevino Cruz, 20. Injured was Alfredo Olivas, 19.

Feb. 21, 1990: Families of the dead and injured men file a $10-million federal civil-rights lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Tom Bradley and Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, alleging that excessive force was used and describing the mission of the SIS as that of a “death squad.”

July 24, 1990: The lone survivor of the four robbers, Alfredo Olivas, is sentenced to 17 years in prison. Olivas pleaded guilty on 10 counts of robbery stemming from a string of holdups of fast-food restaurants, including the Sunland McDonald’s.

Jan. 25, 1991: In the second lawsuit filed in the case, restaurant manager Cox sues the SIS officers and the city, contending that the officers should have stopped the four men from breaking into the restaurant or halted the robbery while it was in progress.

Jan. 9, 1992: Trial in the lawsuit brought by the robbers’ families begins in U.S. District Court before Judge J. Spencer Letts.

March 30, 1992: A 10-juror panel finds in favor of the families, assessing $20,505 in punitive damages against Chief Gates and $23,537 against the nine officers involved in the shooting. Jurors say they purposely set the amount low because they believe the chief and his officers should be forced to pay out of their own pockets. Despite comments from some Los Angeles City Council members that Gates and the officers should pay, the council a month later decides--behind closed doors--to use city funds.

April 1, 1992: Stephen Yagman, the attorney representing the families, files another lawsuit against the City Council and police officials. The $20-million suit, denounced as “extortion” and a “threat” by city officials, is identical to the first suit but is filed on behalf of Johanna Trevino, daughter of one of the slain robbers, Javier Trevino. The girl was born six days after her father was killed. Her suit follows a legal precedent set the previous year allowing a child to sue for damages even though he or she was not yet born when a parent was killed.

July 20, 1992: Despite city protests that its council has “legislative immunity,” U.S. District Court Judge Letts rules that council members must stand trial in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Johanna Trevino. The city appeals his decision.

Jan. 12, 1994: Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charles W. Stoll rules that the city of Los Angeles is not liable for damages suffered by McDonald’s restaurant manager Cox.

Feb. 28, 1994: Ruling against the city’s appeal in the Trevino lawsuit, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously decides that City Council members can be individually sued if they use taxpayer dollars to pay punitive damage awards for a police officer found liable for brutality.

Oct. 11, 1994: The U.S. Supreme Court lets the appellate court ruling stand.

Oct. 25, 1994: Trial of the lawsuit filed on behalf of Johanna Trevino is scheduled to begin in U.S. District Court.