City, Recall Group to Pay Legal Fees in Zeanah Suit

The committee working to oust Councilwoman Elois Zeanah and the city must pay more than $53,000 in legal fees stemming from a court fight her attorneys won earlier this year, a Ventura County Superior Court judge ruled Friday.

Yes! Remove Elois Zeanah and the city of Thousand Oaks were ordered by Judge Joe D. Hadden to split the legal fees of Strumwasser & Woocher, the high-profile Santa Monica law firm that represents Zeanah and argued the case on behalf of plaintiff Thomas B. Humphreys, a Zeanah supporter.

Recall organizers said they would appeal the verdict, which also made Peter J. Turpel, the group’s spokesman, personally liable for the group’s portion of the fees.

“We think it’s unfortunate that Mrs. Zeanah is trying to distract voters from the fact that she is on the ballot and about to be recalled,” said Jill Lederer, who has bankrolled most of the recall drive. “No amount of lawsuits is going to make this recall go away.”

Zeanah countered that the entire legal battle would never have taken place if city officials had been doing their job.

“It was a very nasty thing, but it was a victory for the residents,” Zeanah said. “Unfortunately, they will have to pay for some of it, and that is the city’s fault. Not one penny should have been spent.”

Humphreys, a high school teacher, sued City Clerk Nancy Dillon in February, alleging that she had approved a recall petition format for the anti-Zeanah group that violated state elections law, and that some voters had not understood what they were signing as a result.

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Later that month, Hadden sided with lawyers Frederic D. Woocher and Raleigh H. Levine in freezing the estimated 16,000 signatures the Zeanah recall group had collected, and the anti-Zeanah forces opted to start their campaign again from scratch.

County elections officials recently verified the group’s second batch of signatures, and Zeanah is set to face a recall election Nov. 4.

But until Friday, the issue of who would pay the costs of the original legal skirmish was undecided.

When Levine asked the court for Zeanah’s opponents to pay her legal fees, a customary procedure after winning such a case, the Zeanah recall group accused her of trying to force taxpayers to pay what they saw as Zeanah’s legal bills.

Levine, in turn, argued that citizens would not have had to pay for anything if city officials had forced the anti-Zeanah group to submit new petitions.

City Atty. Mark Sellers and Mitchel B. Kahn, the lawyer for the recall group, had argued before Hadden that Humphreys was a front man for Zeanah and her husband, James, whom they considered the real plaintiffs behind the suit. To support those claims, the recall group pointed to the legal bills themselves, which included charges for numerous calls from the lawyers to James Zeanah, but none to Humphreys.

Moreover, they alleged, the bills included calls to Kitty Radler, one of the principals in the committee Residents to Recall Fox and Lazar, regarding that group’s recall petitions against Mayor Judy Lazar and Councilman Andy Fox. That showed, they argued, that Zeanah was trying to get taxpayers to foot the bill for a rival recall drive.

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Levine denied the accusations, saying under oath that Humphreys was her client, and adding that the issue was irrelevant to the recouping of legal fees anyway. Once again, Hadden sided with Levine, though he removed from the judgment some bills stemming from calls to the Zeanahs. He also trimmed the law firm’s hourly fee, saying a local attorney could have done the job for less, knocking a total of about $8,000 off the original legal bill, dropping it to $53,092.99.

When Hadden issued his tentative ruling and ordered the two sides to sit down and iron out some minor details, the process took nearly an hour, and tensions flared as the lawyers argued about nearly every minute of billed time.

“I don’t like to see the taxpayers getting ripped off,” said a visibly agitated Kahn.

“Mitch, why don’t you just excuse yourself until you can calm down,” Levine said. “You’re hovering over me and complaining about everything.”

Sellers said afterward that he was disappointed with the decision.

“The important issue here is whether an elected official should be able to participate in a recall effort and use public dollars to do so,” Sellers said outside the Simi Valley courtroom. “ . . . Certainly, I would have been happier if the judge had ruled this was a lawsuit on behalf of Mrs. Zeanah and not another party.”

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Humphreys, who did not attend Friday’s hearing or any of the other legal proceedings, said he was pleased the legal saga was over. The Moorpark High School algebra teacher stressed that he had been prepared to pay the legal fees if necessary.

“It was my duty as a citizen to get those petitions thrown out in the first place, and it’s my right to recover the costs,” Humphreys said. “Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about [the fees]. I’m really impressed with the law firm that handled the whole thing.

“It was my decision to go forward with the suit,” he added. “I retained the firm, and the details between me and the firm as to payment, that’s none of anyone’s business. To be honest with you, they looked at the details of the case and said, this is a slam-dunk.”

Turpel said he knew he could be on the hook for some of the legal fees because he had signed much of the group’s legal paperwork, but was nonetheless surprised by the decision.

“The bottom line is, this judgment is not a wise one,” he said. “Citizens should be able to get involved in the recall process without getting sued. I was operating with 20 other people on that committee. How a judge can single me out like that I don’t understand.”