Torrance to Pay Triple Jury Award in Suit : Trial: City increases damages to $379,100 to avoid the threat of greater liability in later phase of case. Three Latino plaintiffs had claimed police abused them.

In a move to rid itself of a damaging civil rights judgment, the city of Torrance forged a settlement to pay three Latino men almost three times the money awarded by a jury that found two police officers had pulled them out of their car at gunpoint, used racial slurs and yanked one man’s testicles during a 1994 traffic stop.

Deputy City Atty. Robert Acciani called the plaintiffs’ attorneys Monday evening after a U.S. District Court jury earlier in the day awarded them $129,100. The $379,100 settlement was cobbled together and approved late Tuesday night by the Torrance City Council at its regular meeting.

“Sometimes you take your ball and go home when things are not going the way you had hoped,” Acciani said.

In addition to invalidating the jury award against officers Martin Dempsey and Joseph Gaines, the settlement derails a second phase of the trial set to begin next week that would have sought punitive damages against Police Chief Joseph De Ladurantey.

For the city, the extra money dispels the finding of wrongdoing by the two officers, and the risk of even more damaging awards in the second phase. Under the settlement, the city admits no wrongdoing, and in official terms is spared its first defeat in at least six police-related civil rights cases this year.

“Certainly we are giving up the . . . pound of flesh we exacted,” said attorney Michael Adelson, who was part of the legal team that represented the plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs Luis Ortiz, Jose Esparza and Jose Rodriguez, all of Inglewood, expressed elation Wednesday over the settlement, despite lingering bitterness toward the Torrance Police Department, which is fighting a federal lawsuit over allegedly racist hiring practices.

“It’s going to be always in my mind,” said Esparza, the 19-year-old who claimed that his testicles were grabbed in the incident. “I’m never going to forget. I get nervous when I see cops now.”

Rodriguez, 22, said the case has sent Torrance a message that ethnic minorities should be treated with the same respect as whites. “Whites, blacks, Mexicans, Asians, we all should be respected the same way,” he said.

Lawyers for both sides informed Judge Lourdes Baird of the proposed settlement early Wednesday in a call to her Downtown Los Angeles courtroom. Both sides expect to finalize the agreement by Friday.

During a seven-day trial that ended last week, the plaintiffs claimed that the officers, both white, clubbed one on the head with a flashlight and ordered them to sit with their hands behind their heads while the patrolmen searched their car on July 14, 1994. Then, the men alleged, the officers escorted them to the San Diego Freeway and told them to leave town. In all, the incident lasted about two hours, they said.

Torrance is not completely free from the legal impact of the jury’s decision because it could be used in civil rights cases to establish a pattern of misconduct, Adelson, co-counsel Howard Price and other civil rights attorneys said.

Paul Hoffman, formerly legal director of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and now a private civil rights attorney in Santa Monica, called the jury’s original punitive award “significant.”

Granting the plaintiffs $120,000 in punitive damages and just $9,100 in compensatory damages, Hoffman said, sent a strong message that while the officers may not have severely injured the plaintiffs, their actions were unacceptable.

“The jury had to be pretty outraged,” he said.

“One would hope that city of Torrance authorities pay attention. It ought to be a message to the city that there are some officers out there who need some attention.”

Price agreed, saying the fact that the jury decided in favor of the plaintiffs is damning despite the later settlement.

“This should have a healthy effect on, if not the City Council, the taxpayers of Torrance,” he said. “If they ignore the handwriting on the wall, they do it at their own peril and at the risk of losing more dollars.”

Both officers remain on the force and were not disciplined because of the incident, said Torrance Police Sgt. Ed Lalonde.

The case is at least the city’s sixth police-related civil rights suit to go to court this year, said Acciani, who argued the city’s case in court. In the previous five, the city emerged victorious either through a judge dismissing the case or a jury finding in its favor.

Acciani said those cases dispel notions that the department fosters abusive officers. “We are not a city that has a Police Department running amok,” he said.