Category Archives: Lawsuits

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver To Lunada Bay Boys Plaintiffs And Defendant Brant Blakeman Re Discovery Matters: You Are The Grownups In The Room So Start Acting Like It Or We’re Just Gonna Have To Have Another Damn Phone Call!

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Earlier today Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver held a telephonic conference with attorneys for the Lunada Bay Boys plaintiffs and also defendant Brant Blakeman. They’re evidently still squabbling over discovery matters. This may be the same dispute I wrote about in January or it may be something else. It has to do, though, with Blakeman claiming that the plaintiffs’ responses to his supplemental interrogatories were inadequate. It’s possible that this disagreement is the one described in these two docket items:

Here is a copy of Rozella Oliver’s order and also there’s a transcription after the break.
Continue reading Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver To Lunada Bay Boys Plaintiffs And Defendant Brant Blakeman Re Discovery Matters: You Are The Grownups In The Room So Start Acting Like It Or We’re Just Gonna Have To Have Another Damn Phone Call! →

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Lawsuits

LA Catholic Worker et al. V. City of LA, CCEA Settlement Terms To Go Before Full Council In Closed Session On June 14

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The momentous 2014 lawsuit by LA Catholic Worker and the LA Community Action Network against the Central City East Association and the City of Los Angeles has been in the settlement process for more than six months now.1 The Central City East Association settled what seems like ages ago. The City of Los Angeles claimed in December that settlement terms had been reached, and then nothing happened for months.
Continue reading LA Catholic Worker et al. V. City of LA, CCEA Settlement Terms To Go Before Full Council In Closed Session On June 14 →

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Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver Orders Further Briefing From Parties On Question Of Whether Lunada Bay Boys Case Plaintiffs Can Get Their Hands On Investigative Report About PVE Police Leak Of Undercover Anti-Bay-Boys Sting Op

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For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case.

You might recall that in early 2016 the Palos Verdes Estates Police Department organized a sting operation to catch zillionaire surf thugs the Lunada Bay Boys in the midst of their zillionaire surf thuggery but someone tipped off the Bay Boys, no doubt because they’re not just all sleeping with each others’ spouses up there on The Hill, they also all grew up together like a bunch of hillbillies in a holler and they operate on a need-to-know basis but they have their own ideas of who needs to know what.

In any case, PVE Chief of Police Jeff Kepley hired an outside investigator to find out what had gone wrong, and the plaintiffs in the case want a copy of the report via discovery. The City of PVE and Jeff Kepley are claiming that the report is privileged under the Work Product Doctrine. So they all had a phone conversation with Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver, and the Judge filed these minutes of the discussion and ordered everyone to submit further briefing by July 6. And if you hate PDFs, turn the page for a transcription of the whole order.
Continue reading Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver Orders Further Briefing From Parties On Question Of Whether Lunada Bay Boys Case Plaintiffs Can Get Their Hands On Investigative Report About PVE Police Leak Of Undercover Anti-Bay-Boys Sting Op →

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Lawsuits

LA Catholic Worker V. City Of Los Angeles Lawsuit Settlement Agreement Scheduled For Budget And Finance Committee Closed Session On Monday, June 5, 2017

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The momentous 2014 lawsuit by LA Catholic Worker and the LA Community Action Network against the Central City East Association and the City of Los Angeles has been in the settlement process for more than six months now.1 Most recently, in March, the terms of CCEA’s part of the settlement were finalized by the court.2 Documents filed with the court as early as last December have announced that the terms of a settlement with the City of Los Angeles had been agreed on and were just pending City Council approval.

Well, Council is finally poised to approve the settlement terms. The matter is on the books as Council File 16-1449, and is scheduled for a closed session on Monday, June 5 at 2 p.m. in Room 1010 of City Hall at the Budget and Finance Committee. As is required by the Brown Act there will be an opportunity for public comment before the closed session. My feeling is that this is a fait accompli and not worth my time to attend, but you should certainly decide for yourself about that.

Given the fairly glacial pace at which the City has been moving, and given the fact that federal district courts move very slowly as well, it will probably be a while before the specific terms of the settlement with the City become public. However, given the stringent terms agreed to by the CCEA, this settlement is likely to include at the very least further restrictions on the City’s ability to enforce its reprehensible personal property ordinance, LAMC §56.11, and probably a lengthy period of oversight by the court as well. Stay tuned for details!
Continue reading LA Catholic Worker V. City Of Los Angeles Lawsuit Settlement Agreement Scheduled For Budget And Finance Committee Closed Session On Monday, June 5, 2017 →

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Central City East Association, Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

The LA CAN & Catholic Worker Lawsuit Has Cost The Central City East Association At Least $115,000 In Legal Fees And Costs (And How It Took Me Two Months Of Hardcore CPRAfaction To Discover This Fact)

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Around these parts we refer to the California Public Records Act as CPRA, pronounced SIP-rah. The methodologies and practicalities of using CPRA are known as CPRAfaction, pronounced SIP-rah-faction.

You may recall that in March, the Central City East Association settled the momentous lawsuit brought against it by the Los Angeles Community Action Network and LA Catholic Worker.3 This was mere months after beloved Los Angeles gadfly Eric Preven and the incomparable ACLU of Southern California won a momentous decision in the California Supreme Court, which ruled essentially that once a legal case was finished the legal privilege exemption to CPRA4 no longer applied. No coincidences around here! So I fired off an email to Estela Lopez as follows:

Good afternoon, Estela, and happy Palm Sunday.

And congratulations on settling that 2014 lawsuit, namely LACW et al. v. Downtown Industrial District BID et al. (2:14-cv-07344-PSG-AJW). I would like to look at copies of all bills from all lawyers who worked for the CCEA on this case.

For the sake of efficiency, and in case you’re not already aware aware of this, here’s a link to an LA Times story on the recent Supreme Court decision declaring that once a case is resolved the bills become public records:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-court-legal-bills-20161229-story.html

As you can imagine, there was a lot of back-and-forth, with her mostly refusing to hand over the legal bills, until this afternoon, when she did hand them over. The full story of that, with bunches of emails and also a reasonable amount of CPRA nerdview, can be found after the break if you’re interested.

But here are the actual bills to CCEA from their lawyers, Hill, Farrer, & Burrill. I spent a little time adding up the totals and their total legal bills, costs and fees, seem to have come to $89,782.54 over the last three years. Add this to the $25,000 they agreed to pay the plaintiffs in the settlement agreement and their whole bill comes to $114,782.54. This is over slightly less than three years, and the BID’s annual budget is roughly $2,000,000, so it’s relatively not that much.

According to Estela Lopez in 2015 there are more than 2000 homeless human beings living in the CCEA’s territory. Thus this lawsuit cost them a little more than $57 per potential harassment victim. I’m sure this seems cheap at the price. Anyway, that’s the substantive information. Turn the page for the story of how I got my hands on it!
Continue reading The LA CAN & Catholic Worker Lawsuit Has Cost The Central City East Association At Least $115,000 In Legal Fees And Costs (And How It Took Me Two Months Of Hardcore CPRAfaction To Discover This Fact) →

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Lawsuits

Order Filed This Morning Certifies Chua V. City Of Los Angeles, Federal Civil Rights Case Arising Out Of 2014 Michael Brown Protests, As A Class Action With Some Minor Exceptions

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California-centralSee this article from the LA Times and our previous posts on the subject for the background to this post. All of the filings can be found here.

Last July the plaintiffs in this monumental federal civil rights suit against the City of Los Angeles for the reprehensible behavior of the LAPD in 2014 with respect to protests arising out of the Michael Brown killing filed a motion to have the suit certified as a class action. In November, Judge Kronstadt announced that he was pretty much inclined to certify it but that he wanted to see some supplemental briefs. So that happened, and this morning he filed filed a comprehensive order certifying the case as a class action with only a couple of minor5 exceptions. He also granted the plaintiffs leave to amend their complaint in response to his order. Turn the page for links to a few other items that have been filed in the last few days.
Continue reading Order Filed This Morning Certifies Chua V. City Of Los Angeles, Federal Civil Rights Case Arising Out Of 2014 Michael Brown Protests, As A Class Action With Some Minor Exceptions →

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Lawsuits

Street Photographer Shawn Nee Completely Settles Case Against LAPD, City Of Los Angeles, For Interfering With His Right To Photograph Police, Terms Apparently Not Yet Released

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Perhaps you recall that Los Angeles based street photographer Shawn Nee filed suit against the City and the LAPD for preventing him from freely photographing the police. Well, it turns out that, last week, the case was completely settled. The terms of the settlement do not yet seem to be public, but two documents did show up on PACER confirming the settlement. Turn the page for links and descriptions.
Continue reading Street Photographer Shawn Nee Completely Settles Case Against LAPD, City Of Los Angeles, For Interfering With His Right To Photograph Police, Terms Apparently Not Yet Released →

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Lawsuits, Los Angeles City Government

LAPD Critic Patti Beers Filed A Federal Suit Against City Of LA In November 2016 Also Arising Out Of LAPD Misconduct During 2014 Michael Brown Protests

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You may recall that all-round heroine Jasmyne Cannick filed suit in federal court last December alleging that the LAPD and the City of LA had selectively prosecuted her for charges arising from 2014 protests about the Michael Brown situation in revenge for her outspoken criticism of the department. Well, it just recently came to my attention that Patti Beers, another well-known critic of the LAPD, who was also arrested and prosecuted6 under the same general circumstances, filed a suit against the City and various LAPD officials, at roughly the same time, in November 2016.

The suit alleges, among other things, that the LAPD has a policy of targeting critics and using selective arrests to punish them for their political activity. Even more interestingly, I think, is the allegation that the City Attorney, who is responsible for prosecuting misdemeanors committed in the City of LA, unduly defers to the LAPD’s wishes when deciding who to prosecute and when to exercise prosecutorial discretion in pursuing charges. These matters are interesting enough that I’m going to collect the paperwork in this case and occasionally report on developments. Here is the second amended complaint. You can also get to the documents via static storage, which you can also get to kind of from the menu structure. Read on for some excerpts if you don’t like PDFs.
Continue reading LAPD Critic Patti Beers Filed A Federal Suit Against City Of LA In November 2016 Also Arising Out Of LAPD Misconduct During 2014 Michael Brown Protests →

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Lawsuits

Amha V. City Of Los Angeles Lawsuit Stemming From LAPD Abuse During 2014 Michael Brown Protests Dismissed This Morning Due To Settlement, Although Terms Don’t Yet Seem To Be Public

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You may recall that in January 2016, Semhar Girmay Amha filed a suit in federal court against the City of Los Angeles for their illegal detention and surreally flagrant verbal abuse of her after the 2014 Michael Brown protests downtown. Here is my original article on the subject and all the interesting paper filed in the case is also available.

Well, yesterday the parties, that is, Amha and also the City of Los Angeles, filed a joint stipulation to dismiss because they have reached a settlement. Today the judge filed an order dismissing the case on the basis of the stipulation. The stipulation is completely lacking in detail, and it’s not clear if the terms of the settlement will be made public, but anyway, that’s the news. You can read the stipulation and the order after the break if you don’t like PDFs.
Continue reading Amha V. City Of Los Angeles Lawsuit Stemming From LAPD Abuse During 2014 Michael Brown Protests Dismissed This Morning Due To Settlement, Although Terms Don’t Yet Seem To Be Public →

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Central City East Association, Lawsuits

Huge News: LA Community Action Network Lawsuit Against Central City East Association and City Of LA Poised To Settle, CCEA Agrees To Specific, Extensive Restrictions On Homeless Property Confiscation, Will Pay $25,000 To LAFLA In Damages, Legal Fees, And Costs. City Of LA Settlement Expected To Go To City Council Soon, LAMC 56.11 Enforcement Likely To Be Severely Attenuated

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News of a settlement in the momentous lawsuit brought by the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles on behalf of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, the LA Catholic Worker, and a number of individuals over the confiscation of homeless people’s property by BID and by City, has been rumbling around PACER for about one year now. Well, yesterday evening, the first concrete details of the ongoing settlement process arrived. The parties filed a joint report indicating that concrete terms had been reached with both CCEA and the City of Los Angeles. The City of LA part still has to be approved by City Council, but according to the document, this is likely to happen within 45 days.

On the other hand, amazingly, the proposed agreement between the CCEA and the plaintiffs has actually been filed! It must still be approved by Judge Philip Gutierrez, but it strikes me as extraordinarily unlikely that it would not be. The agreement severely restricts the circumstances under which the BID can confiscate property. The terms of this part of the settlement make it seem very likely that the City will agree to severe restrictions in its enforcement of LAMC 56.11, the property confiscation ordinance, at least on Skid Row. CCEA will also pay LAFLA $25,000 for damages, fees, and costs. Turn the page for some details of what the CCEA has agreed to.
Continue reading Huge News: LA Community Action Network Lawsuit Against Central City East Association and City Of LA Poised To Settle, CCEA Agrees To Specific, Extensive Restrictions On Homeless Property Confiscation, Will Pay $25,000 To LAFLA In Damages, Legal Fees, And Costs. City Of LA Settlement Expected To Go To City Council Soon, LAMC 56.11 Enforcement Likely To Be Severely Attenuated →

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