County Ordered to Pay Extra $2.3 Million in Brutality Case

Cash-strapped Los Angeles County, recently ordered by a civil court jury to pay a record $15.9 million to a Samoan American family brutalized by sheriff’s deputies, has been instructed this week by a Superior Court judge to pay an additional $2.3 million in fees and costs to the family’s attorneys.

Judge Robert R. Devich, in a terse five-page court order, granted the largest chunk of the award, nearly $1 million, to Garo Mardirossian, lead attorney for the Dole family of Cerritos.

After a six-month civil rights trial that began in February, a jury found that about two dozen sheriff’s deputies had brutalized or falsely arrested 36 people attending a bridal shower in 1989 at the home of family patriarch Arthur Dole.

The Dole family’s legal team, which also included attorneys Hugh R. Manes and Thomas Beck, had sought about $3.5 million for their seven years of effort in the groundbreaking case.

But Mardirossian said Wednesday that he was “gratified” with the amount granted by Devich. “In one way, I lost a million in fees we were entitled to,” said Mardirossian. “But these numbers are unusual. . . . It’s a lot of money.”

The jury’s initial judgment, which lawyers for the county have said will be appealed, was the largest ever against the Sheriff’s Department.

A videotape of the Sheriff Department’s riot-geared response to a call about a fight at the bridal shower was key evidence of the excessive force used by deputies.

The jurors, who heard testimony from more than 100 witnesses, added to their repudiation of the Sheriff’s Department by ruling that the agency engages in policies and practices that have resulted in a “deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights” of county residents.

Mardirossian criticized the Sheriff’s Department for failing to undertake an investigative or disciplinary action against the deputies found liable for brutalizing the Doles. “What corporation in this day and age would allow this monetary loss and take no steps to correct the problems?” he asked.

Saying that “the case is still under litigation,” a sheriff’s spokesman, Deputy Sheriff Fidel Gonzales, said Wednesday, “It would be inappropriate to make any comments at this point.”