Suit Against Simi Makes Top 10 Frivolous List

A lawsuit filed by a Simi Valley woman seeking damages from the city after her son rolled over his own fingers while skateboarding has been selected as one of the Top 10 Frivolous Lawsuits of the Decade by a watchdog group.

Calling it the “Rocky Road” case, the Civil Justice Assn. of California picked the suit because of its claim that the city was negligent for allegedly failing to maintain a sidewalk.

The suit was filed in August 1991, but has long since been thrown out of court for lack of merit. The victim was an 11-year-old boy who only lost a fingernail.

“It was absolutely absurd to try and blame the city,” said John Sullivan, president of the Sacramento-based group, which has spent 20 years lobbying against frivolous lawsuits.

The case was joined on the top 10 list by several other humorous lawsuits, including one filed in Santa Clara County in which a local YMCA was accused of negligence for failing to provide a lifeguard for a hot tub that was 7 feet 4 inches wide, 7 feet 10 inches long and only 3 feet 6 inches deep.

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The lengthy and sometimes tricky obstacle course that is the application process to become a Ventura police officer is nearly half over for five determined folks.

After four months of written and physical tests, background checks and palm-sweating interviews with high-ranking cops, the five were selected from 172 applicants to attend a police academy to be held in Camarillo beginning Feb. 7.

For six months, the students will attend classes eight hours a day, five days a week, to learn the law, how to write reports, the rules of search and seizure and victims’ rights, said Ventura Police Lt. Gary McCaskill.

Those who graduate will get a badge and gun and then a chance to spend the following four months doing on-the-job training with an instructor before finally getting a chance to roll on their own by next fall.

The application process was last mentioned in this column in September after Chief Mike Tracy said he wanted to increase the number of women and minorities on the force.

The original application pool included 136 men and 36 women. The racial breakdown of male applicants was 70 whites, 52 Latinos, seven blacks and seven Asian Americans. The women included 15 whites, 15 Latinas, two Asian Americans, three American Indians and one black.

Of the five who made it to the academy, three are white males and two are women, one white and one Latina.

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For those of you who weren’t quite ready for the giving season to end last week, think about making another donation to a group of unlikely do-gooders.

This is a group of hard-luck women. They’ve known booze and drugs and they’ve done wrong. But now they’re trying do a little right by knitting blankets for the elderly in the county’s rest homes.

The women at the Ojai Honor Farm need yarn and lots of it.

“It gives them something to do and it will benefit somebody else. I can’t see a downside,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Joe Funchess, an administrator at the farm.

The inmates, about a dozen women enrolled in the jail’s 12-step drug and alcohol recovery program, were inspired after making 50 cloth dolls during the holidays for underprivileged girls.

As part of that gift project, the inmates knitted several miniature blankets and caps for the dolls.

“I think the thought was ‘Why can’t we knit more in our spare time?’ ” Funchess said.

To donate balls of yarn for the project, call 933-8564.

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A father and daughter in Simi Valley have found a unique way to spend New Year’s Eve.

Richard Wright, a captain with the Simi Valley Police Department, and his daughter, Officer Carin Wright, will partner up to patrol the streets between 3 p.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Saturday.

Normally, officers in Simi ride solo, but the brass decided to send out teams on the new millennium because of an expected large number of revelers. Loud parties, gunfire, drunk driving and domestic violence are anticipated--as on most New Year’s Eves.

“We’ve never worked in the field together so this will give us a chance,” said Richard Wright. “We should do this at least once in our careers.”

The captain also said his decision to work the holiday night shift will allow a rank-and-file officer to have the evening off.

With a combined 39 years of police work, the family team should be an asset on the busy night.

Or, as the department’s oft quotable Lt. Rex Jones said: “Two Wrights don’t make a wrong.”

Holly J. Wolcott can be reached at holly.wolcott@latimes.com