King Legal Battle Threatens Much of Lawsuit Award

More than a year after Rodney G. King won a $3.8-million judgment against the city of Los Angeles, the police beating victim is now locked in a fee dispute with his onetime lead lawyer that could cost him much of the award.

Attorney Milton C. Grimes filed a lawsuit this week alleging that King not only owes him and other attorneys and experts in the case nearly $1 million, but should be forced to pay another $1.4 million for allegedly slandering his onetime legal representative and confidante.

Grimes’ lawsuit, filed Thursday in Orange County Superior Court, is just the latest in a run of setbacks for King, who was arrested a week ago on suspicion of domestic abuse and assault with a deadly weapon.

The Newport Beach-based lawyer said he merely wants King to honor an agreement to pay one-quarter of any judgment in the case, or $954,000, in addition to the $456,000 in fees that U.S. District Judge John G. Davies ordered the city of Los Angeles to pay directly to Grimes.

“We had an agreement,” Grimes said in an interview. “I worked with him on a daily basis preparing him for the case and just keeping him alive and advising him. We had him working with a tutor to get his GED [high school equivalency degree]. He came to my home and my office at all hours and we had people work with him to instill some self-worth in him, some dignity.

“I spent $300,000 of my own money on this case for doctors and experts. . . . I have no qualms at all about this.”

King, 30, could not be reached for comment. But he is now being represented in the fee dispute by Steven Lerman, his original attorney in the civil rights lawsuit. Lerman has been engaged in a protracted and bitter dispute with Grimes over who should represent the former construction worker from Altadena.

“Rodney King is only obligated to pay those fees that any other client would have to pay,” Lerman said. “Just because he is Rodney King doesn’t mean he should be beaten up for fees. He has already been beaten up once and doesn’t want to be beaten up again.”

Along with his lawsuit, Grimes filed a copy of his contract with King, which calls for the 25% contingency fee. The attorney said he had an oral agreement with his client that the contingency fee would be in addition to any attorney fees that the city was ordered to pay after losing the case.

Lerman disagrees, saying that King never agreed to pay both a percentage of his award and the money awarded by Davies. “All the lawyers in this case, with the exception of Mr. Grimes, have agreed to take the attorney fee awarded by the court and live with that,” Lerman said. “Only Grimes wants more.”

In federal civil rights cases, plaintiffs are entitled to have their attorneys fees paid by the defendant if they prevail at trial.

More than a dozen lawyers for King submitted bills totaling $4.4 million, but Davies drastically reduced those fees to $1.6 million, saying many of the other billings were for a failed punitive damage claim and for media appearances. (Even some of those payments, including $456,000 to Grimes, have allegedly been frozen because of the disagreement.)

Grimes’ defamation claim against his former client stems from King’s appearance in May on a local television news program, in which he purportedly said his attorney kept all but $500,000 of his judgment. The statement implied that Grimes “had in some fashion absconded, stolen and/or duped him out of the portion of the judgment to which he was entitled,” the lawyer’s lawsuit charges.