Judge Sets Hearing on Suit to Block Camarillo Closing

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge Friday set an April 10 hearing for arguments in a lawsuit aimed at halting the closure of Camarillo State Hospital, but not before warning attorneys for the state to steer clear of trashing the parents who brought the legal challenge.

In setting the court date, Judge Diane Wayne said she did not see an immediate need to block the closure and the transfer of patients to other facilities, because that process is not expected to start until later next month.

But Wayne cautioned attorneys representing the state Department of Developmental Services to simply argue the facts in the lawsuit, filed this week in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of family members of Camarillo State patients.

“Counsel, you won’t help yourself by trying to trash the parents,” Wayne told Deputy Atty. Gen. Laurie R. Pearlman, who is representing the state agency. “You can make your argument, but be a human being, don’t be heartless.”

Wayne was apparently reacting to language in a response filed Friday by the state agency to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit--brought by the Greenline Parents Group and Family and Advocates of the Mentally Ill--alleges that the closure of the state hospital would violate state law and do irreparable harm to the institution’s nearly 700 mentally ill and developmentally disabled clients.

The response counters those arguments point by point, concluding that the parent groups “present only some baseless speculation, but fail to present any competent evidence that anyone will be irreparably harmed by the closure.”

The response states that the parent groups have waited too long to bring their argument to court, and are therefore not entitled to injunctive relief.

And the document goes on to say that other parents and patients would be harmed--those who supported the closure--if the court granted an order blocking the shutdown.

Attorneys representing the state agency were surprised by the judge’s reaction, and were quick to say that they never intended to demean family members of the hospital patients.

“The department has never doubted the sincerity or interest of the parents,” said Michael Mount, chief counsel for the state agency.