Category Archives: Lawsuits

Tempers Flare in Federal Court as Voluminous New Filings in LACW, LACAN v. City of LA, CCEA Case Reveal Inside Story of Lengthy, Painful Discovery Process

December 10, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

On Tuesday (December 8) a bunch of new documents related to the discovery process were filed in the ongoing lawsuit filed by Los Angeles Catholic Worker and the Los Angeles Community Action Network against the City of Los Angeles and the Central City East Association, which runs the Downtown Industrial District BID. I don’t have the competence to comment usefully on most of this stuff, but, interestingly, there’s a lot of discussion of how the city of Los Angeles deals with public records. This, I do know something about.

Anyway, you can find all of the new pleadings here in the subdirectory, dated December 8, 2015. First there is a brief motion to compel discovery from the city of LA, necessary because getting camels through the eyes of needles is easier than getting documents out of the city of Los Angeles. This was foreshadowed by something I missed in the the joint stipulation, discussed in my post the other day:

The City and Plaintiffs have met extensively regarding Defendants’ responses to Plaintiffs’ Requests for Production and will likely require Court intervention to resolve their disagreement

It seems that, however, as I recently reported, the CCEA at least is complying with discovery requests. There’s a little bit more detail after the break, including some sample prose laden with negative feelings in a manner not so commonly found in pleadings. I hope to write on a number of specific items later today or quite soon, especially the controversy over production of emails, an area where the city of Los Angeles is infamous for flouting the law.
Continue reading Tempers Flare in Federal Court as Voluminous New Filings in LACW, LACAN v. City of LA, CCEA Case Reveal Inside Story of Lengthy, Painful Discovery Process →

Announcements, Lawsuits

LACW, LACAN Lawsuit Against CCEA, City of LA, NOT Continued Until July Due to Successful-ish Ongoing Settlement Talks. Trial Still Set for April 26, 2016

December 8, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Ammon Hennacy in Santa Monica in July, 1966.

NOTE: Clearly I can’t read. This is wrong. The joint proposed motion filed by the parties was DENIED by the court. Trial is still set for April 26, 2016.
According to pleadings filed on November 30, 2015, settlement talks in the lawsuit filed by Los Angeles Catholic Worker and the Los Angeles Community Action Network against the City of Los Angeles and the Central City East Association, which runs the Downtown Industrial District BID, are proceeding well. The parties filed a joint stipulation stating that they

…continue to engage in settlement negotiations and are actively exchanging proposals. The parties believe future talks will continue to be productive and are amenable to participating in further sessions with Judge Woehrle [the magistrate judge in the case]. Because these early settlement conferences indicated a potential for resolution of this case, and because all parties are non-profits and government entities, the parties have attempted to delay incurring significant litigation expenses from discovery and motion practice while the parties have been actively engaged in settlement negotiations.

And there’s more of that kind of thing in the stipulation. Well, as the man said, “if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them.” On December 2, 2015, Judge Gutierrez filed an order pushing the trial date back three months to July 2016 to give the parties time to work everything out.
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Lawsuits

National Lawyers Guild LA Street Vending Case to Stay with Judge Beverly O’Connell for now, Petition for Transfer to Judge Philip Gutierrez Denied

November 22, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Federal Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell, in whose court the NLG's street vending case is being heard. — Federal Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell, in whose court the NLG’s street vending case is being heard.

This is just a quick note to alert you that there has been some action, albeit not that much, in the street vending lawsuit against the Fashion District BID and the city of LA. Some of the new documents, I think the interesting ones, but PACER is so clunky, not to mention expensive, that it’s hard to be sure, can be found here or directly here in static storage. Basically what seems to have happened is that the case was assigned to Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell and the plaintiffs asked to have it moved to the court of Philip Gutierrez. As you’ll know if you’ve been following things, Gutierrez is the judge in the Lavan case and also the LACW and LACAN case against the city of LA and the Central City East Association, which runs the Downtown Industrial District BID. The NLG argues that these two cases are similar enough to the instant case that they ought to be heard by the same judge. This request was denied, and they’ve filed a request for reconsideration. The request for reconsideration hinges on what is, I think, the crucial aspect of this case and the one against CCEA.
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Hollywood BID Patrol, Lawsuits

Acting on Behalf of Street Vendors National Lawyers Guild LA Sues City, Fashion District BID Over Illegal Confiscations, Color-of-Law Abuses. PDF of Initial Complaint Available

October 29, 2015 Mike Leave a comment

Another street vendor arrested, shackled, jailed, and abused by the Hollywood BID Patrol

Yesterday, the National Lawyers Guild Los Angeles filed suit in Federal Court against the City of Los Angeles and the Fashion District BID on behalf of the Union Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes. First of all, I set up a page to collect filings. I managed to track down a copy of the initial complaint (OK, I mean I bought it from PACER for $1.70, you’re welcome!), and you can read about it in the LA Times here if you want.

The title of this file claims that it's abandoned property and that it was donated to Blessed Sacrament. It's obvious from the context, though, that it's really stuff that was confiscated from a street vendor by the BID Patrol or else abandoned when the vendor ran away because the BID Patrol was threatening to arrest him. In any case, it did not belong to them and they stole it when they took it to give to the church. — The title of this file claims that it’s abandoned property and that it was donated to Blessed Sacrament. It’s obvious from the context, though, that it’s really stuff that was confiscated from a street vendor by the BID Patrol or else abandoned when the vendor ran away because the BID Patrol was threatening to arrest him. In any case, it did not belong to them and they stole it when they took it to give to the church.

There’s an excerpt from the complaint after the break, but it’s really worth reading the whole thing.

One of the main points is that the LAPD and the BID conspire to not only cite and/or arrest the vendors, but to destroy their stuff. We’ve written before about how the Hollywood BID Patrol does the same thing. They not only arrest the vendors, but without any kind of due process, they ruin all their stuff, or even worse, appropriate it and steal it. You can see an example of this in the photo somewhere near this sentence. I would imagine that, now that the Fashion District BID is being sued, the HPOA is getting a little nervous. Turn the page to hear why!

Continue reading Acting on Behalf of Street Vendors National Lawyers Guild LA Sues City, Fashion District BID Over Illegal Confiscations, Color-of-Law Abuses. PDF of Initial Complaint Available →