Category Archives: Lawsuits

Defendants in Street Vending Lawsuit (City of LA, Fashion District BID, etc.) Granted Extension to February 25, 2016, to File Response to Complaint

January 21, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell presenting an award to some people in Burbank. — Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell presenting an award to some people in Burbank.

This is not a big deal, but I just thought I’d mention it. On Tuesday all the parties to the street vending lawsuit filed a stipulation asking Judge O’Connell to extend the deadline for the defendants to answer the initial complaint until February 25, 2016. Today the judge filed an order granting that request. The reason for the delay is the settlement conference scheduled for February 11, 2016. You read it here first, friends!

Image of Judge O’Connell in Burbank seems to me to be a public record in California since I got it from the website of the California Judiciary.

Lawsuits

A Series of Unexpected Events Add Up to Discovery Delays in L.A. Catholic Worker v. City of L.A., Central City East Association Lawsuit Over Homeless Property Confiscations; Trial Now Scheduled for June 21, 2016

January 16, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Yesterday, Judge Philip Gutierrez issued an order extending the discovery deadline in L.A. Catholic Worker et al. v. City of L.A. et al. until February 19 and moving the trial date to June 21, 2016. This order capped off a week full of filings. First, on Monday, January 11, presumably after the hearing on plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery, Ronald Whitaker, who supervises the Business and Complex Litigation section of the L.A. City Attorney’s office, filed a notice of appearance in the case. He’s (probably) the boss of Deputy City Attorney Elizabeth Fitzgerald, who has been defending the case for the City.

I didn’t see the significance of this at the time, but it was clarified on Wednesday, when the plaintiffs filed an ex parte (that is, without the on-the-record participation of the defendants) application to amend the scheduling order to continue dates by 30 days. This is an unusual procedure and it seems it must be justified by the existence of exigent circumstances. In this case the first of these is that on Monday the 11^th, after the discovery hearing, Elizabeth Fitzgerald had a medical emergency and will be on leave at least through the end of January. At the very least this requires the rescheduling of a bunch of depositions, and is probably why Ronald Whitaker joined the case. Note also that the plaintiffs asked for and received the City of LA’s support of the application and that the CCEA did not oppose it.

Elizabeth Fitzgerald’s illness is only one of the reasons supporting plaintiffs’ request for an extension. The others all have to do with what’s turned out to be a lengthy, drawn-out, painful, inch-by-inch discovery process. It seems that any optimism over the pace of document production, both by the City and by the CCEA, was unwarranted, and I’m guessing it won’t even be complete by February 19, but we shall see, shan’t we? There are some more specific details after the break if you’re interested.
Continue reading A Series of Unexpected Events Add Up to Discovery Delays in L.A. Catholic Worker v. City of L.A., Central City East Association Lawsuit Over Homeless Property Confiscations; Trial Now Scheduled for June 21, 2016 →

Lawsuits

Street Vending Lawsuit Mandatory Settlement Conference Set for February 11, 2016

January 15, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Mere minutes ago, Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell filed an order in the street-vending lawsuit Aureliano Santiago et al. v. City of L.A. and Fashion District BID setting a mandatory settlement conference for February 11, 2016. The order looks like pure boilerplate and of course settlement conferences are super-top-secret, so there’s nothing to attend and probably will be nothing to report. But I had to get the document to learn that, so I thought I’d toss it up here for you.
Continue reading →

Announcements, Lawsuits

Documents Available as City of L.A., Charlie Beck Sued by Michael Brown Protesters, National Lawyers Guild, over November 2014 Rights Violations

January 15, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

April 2015 Death by Cop march in Westlake. It's not what this lawsuit is about, but it's a good picture. — April 2015 Death by Cop march in Westlake. It’s not what this lawsuit is about, but it’s a good picture.

Yesterday night the Times reported that a suit was filed in federal court on January 14, 2016, on behalf of people, including NLG-LA lawyers there to observe, whose rights were violated by the LAPD in November 2014 during a protest against a Missouri grand jury’s failure to indict Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown. For whatever reason, newspaper articles like this never link to the court filings, which I, and maybe even you, find fascinating. On the face of it this case has nothing to do with BIDs, although it’s conceivable that a connection will develop,¹ but I’m going to collect filings here anyway since I’m going to read them myself, so I might as well distribute them. I don’t plan to write much on them, but who knows? I set up a page to display them. It’s also reachable through the menu structure above. Right now the initial complaint is there and is well worth your time. There are some selections after the break:
Continue reading →

Lawsuits

Discovery Hangups Seem to Have Been Settled in Today’s Hearing in LA Catholic Worker, LA CAN, v. City of L.A., Central City East Association

January 11, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Round and around and around she goes... — Round and around and around she goes…

There was a hearing this morning in the lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and the Central City East Association, which is fairly historic since, for the first time in Los Angeles, if not anywhere, an attempt is being made to call a Business Improvement District to account for conspiring with the City to violate people’s rights and to prove, once and for all, that BIDs really are agents of the City, no matter what everyone involved says about it. Unfortunately various circumstances conspired to prevent me from attending this hearing (of plaintiffs’ motion to compel discovery) in front of Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Wisterich. But the minutes (not the transcript) were posted on PACER this afternoon. After a conference in the courtroom, it seems that all the difficulties have been settled, and the City of L.A. will produce all the discovery material within 10 days. Read the whole thing after the break.
Continue reading →

Lawsuits

Quick Updates on Two Federal Lawsuits

December 29, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

There’s not much hard news here, but there’s something. First of all the street vending lawsuit. Last week both the Fashion District BID and the City of LA asked the court for extra time to respond to the plaintiffs’ discovery requests. Because the City asked for fewer than 30 days the request is automatically granted, but the FDBID asked for more than 30 days, and so needed an order from Judge O’Connell. On the 23^rd that order was filed by the judge, who granted the FDBID an extension until January 25, 2016. Note that there’s nothing especially interesting in this document.

However, there’s also been some action in the LA Catholic Worker/LACAN v. City of LA/CCEA case. You may recall that the plaintiffs called for a hearing on January 11, 2016 over a motion to compel the City of Los Angeles to stop being so damned recalcitrant about handing over discovery material, and everybody seems super-tense about everything and mad at one another in a way that one doesn’t usually see with actual professional lawyers. Anyway, yesterday the plaintiffs filed a supplemental memorandum of law in support of their motion to compel, which makes for some interesting reading in the run-up to the hearing on the 11^th.

TL;DR is that the plaintiffs accuse the City of LA of abusing the rule requiring parties to “meet and confer” over discovery matters by providing irrelevant material and so on in order to run out the clock on discovery. I’m convinced by their arguments, but obviously I’m biased. There’s also a hyper-meta discussion on whether the fact that an attorney directs the discovery process makes the documents used to coordinate the process into privileged attorney work-product. I’m sure I missed all the fine points, but I’m definitely convinced. These people will claim privilege for anything. Shameless. Find curated selections from the pleading after the break.
Continue reading Quick Updates on Two Federal Lawsuits →

Lawsuits

Is the Lavan Case Close to a Settlement? Documents Filed in Federal Court Suggest the Answer is Yes and that it May Happen in July 2016

December 24, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Carol Sobel, lead plaintiffs' attorney in Lavan v. City of Los Angeles — Carol Sobel, lead plaintiffs’ attorney in Lavan v. City of Los Angeles

The Lavan case is kind of off our beat here since it’s not directly linked to BIDs, but I haven’t found any discussion in the news of pleadings filed with the court in early December, so I thought I’d upload them and note their existence here as a public service. (I don’t want to go into the details of the case, but if you’re not already familiar with them, the Argonaut has a reasonable if westside-whiny outline of the situation). On December 2, 2015, the parties to the case filed a Joint Notice of Tentative Settlement, asking Judge Philip Gutierrez to vacate the trial date due to an impending settlement:

As the Court is aware, the parties participated in a settlement conference before Magistrate Judge Woehrle on November 24, 2015, at which time they reached a tentative settlement of the remaining issues in this action. The settlement requires a four-step approval procedure by the City. That process is anticipated to take at least three months, if not longer, particularly in light of the upcoming holidays resulting in the cancellation of several meeting dates for City officials. If the settlement is approved by the City Council, the third step in the process, it then goes to the Mayor, who has 10 days to act on the proposal. The parties have agreed that, if approved by the City, the settlement will be paid at the beginning of the next fiscal year, which is July 1, 2016.

The next day, December 3, 2015, Judge Gutierrez issued an order granting the parties’ joint request. So we’ll see what happens, eh?
Continue reading →

Lawsuits

Street Vending Lawsuit Defendants City of LA and Fashion District BID File Requests in Federal Court Yesterday Asking for Extension to January to Respond to Initial Complaint, FDBID and Plaintiffs Intend Attempt to Resolve Informally

December 22, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Yesterday both defendants in the Street Vendors v. City of LA and Fashion District BID lawsuit filed requests in Federal Court to extend their time to respond to the initial complaint.

The City of LA, in this pleading, asked for an extension of fewer than 30 days, which evidently is granted automatically. With this motion the City is due to respond by January 19, 2016.

On the other hand, the Fashion District BID, in this pleading, with the concurrence (stipulation) of the plaintiffs, asked for more than 30 days to respond. Evidently this requires the approval of the court, so they have to give reasons:
Continue reading Street Vending Lawsuit Defendants City of LA and Fashion District BID File Requests in Federal Court Yesterday Asking for Extension to January to Respond to Initial Complaint, FDBID and Plaintiffs Intend Attempt to Resolve Informally →

Lawsuits, Public Records Act Pragmatics

LAPD Senior Systems Analyst’s Declaration in LACW Lawsuit Provides Further Insight into LAPD’s Secretive and Cavalier Attitude Towards Public Records, Legal Obligations

December 13, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

A house of secrets: LAPD headquarters at night.

Papers newly filed in federal court reveal an astonishing unwillingness on the part of the City of Los Angeles and the LAPD to release public records and other documents to the plaintiffs in the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and LA Community Action Network lawsuit. A few days ago I wrote about these filings in general and today I’m going to discuss some specific details about the City’s claims regarding the LAPD’s email system and how, they say, it’s preventing them from complying with the discovery process in the suit. This topic is, of necessity, mostly inside baseball both legally and technologically, and maybe you want to skip it if that bores you. If so, the TL;DR is that the LAPD contradicts itself constantly about the availability of its emails for legal discovery, and the LAPD only looks even more furtive when facts related to Public Records Act requests are considered. All four of the documents I discuss below were extracted from Part 2 of Catherine Sweetser’s declaration, filed with the court on December 8, 2015.
Continue reading →

Announcements, Lawsuits

Hearing on Motion to Compel City of Los Angeles to Hand Over Discovery Documents to Plaintiffs LA Catholic Worker and LA Community Action Network Set for January 11, 2016

December 11, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

The Roybal federal building, location of Judge Philip Gutierrez's courtroom. — The Roybal federal building, location of Judge Philip Gutierrez’s courtroom.

This is a very quick note to announce that attorneys for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles yesterday filed notice that they’ll be making a motion on January 11, 2016 at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 690 in the Roybal Building downtown to compel the City of Los Angeles to hand over a bunch of discovery material. I reported briefly on this subject yesterday, but wasn’t aware for sure at that time that they were actually going to court over the city’s recalcitrance. I’ll be writing much more about this later, but I wanted to drop this on you in a timely manner so you can arrange your calendars.
Continue reading →