Tag Archives: Philip Gutierrez

Today Judge Phillip Gutierrez Issued Final Order Dismissing LA Catholic Worker v. City Of LA, Central City East Association. Settlement With City Includes An LAPD Directive Applicable To ALL BIDs In The City Of Los Angeles Stating Explicitly, Among Other Crucial Things, That BID Security Has No More Authority Than Private People To Enforce The Law

June 30, 2017 Mike Leave a comment

A couple weeks ago the City Council approved a settlement with LA Catholic Worker, LA Community Action Network, and individual plaintiffs in the monumental case against the City and the Downtown Industrial District BID, which itself settled in March. This afternoon, Judge Phillip Gutierrez filed an order dismissing the case. Thus it’s all done except for the four years of judicial oversight to make sure that the defendants are adhering to the terms of the settlement.

The terms of the settlement with the CCEA are fairly strict, and I hadn’t seen a copy of the terms of the settlement with the City. But it turns out that on Wednesday the parties filed a a request for the case to be dismissed, which lays out the specifics. As I expected, the City agrees not to cooperate with the Downtown Industrial District security forces in confiscating property and they make some other important but not so surprising concessions.

To my mind, though, the most interesting part of what the City agreed to is this training bulletin, to be distributed to the LAPD’s central division. Although it’s a result of a suit arising from the City’s relationship with a specific BID, and although it’s only to be distributed in the one division, the wording applies to all BIDs in the City of Los Angeles. There’s a transcription after the break, but one crucial bit is this, which someone really should explain to the Hollywood BID Patrol:

BIDs are separate and distinct from the City. BID officers, employees, and representatives are not employees or agents of the City. Importantly, BID employees have no more authority than private citizens to enforce the law.

Amazingly, the bulletin also reminds police officers that they are required to treat reports of BID Patrol property confiscation as they do any other report of a theft. This settlement is a truly monumental accomplishment on the plaintiffs’ part, and our City is far, far better off for their work. They have a lot to be proud of here.
Continue reading Today Judge Phillip Gutierrez Issued Final Order Dismissing LA Catholic Worker v. City Of LA, Central City East Association. Settlement With City Includes An LAPD Directive Applicable To ALL BIDs In The City Of Los Angeles Stating Explicitly, Among Other Crucial Things, That BID Security Has No More Authority Than Private People To Enforce The Law →

Lawsuits

LA Catholic Worker et al. v. CCEA, City of L.A. et al. Trial Postponed Till October 4, 2016 Due to Discovery Delays

April 7, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Over the last few days, but for some reason just hitting PACER today, the parties in the LA Catholic Worker and LA Community Action Network v. the Central City East Association and the City of LA filed a joint stipulation to continue the various scheduled dates in the case due to what’s turned out to be an incredibly grueling discovery process in the case. This is not the first time the trial date has been postponed for this reason. Here is the judge’s order granting the continuance until October 4, 2016.

Lawsuits

A Flurry of Filings in Mitchell et al. v. City of LA et al. Suggests that Homeless Advocates May be Trying to have City Enjoined from Enforcing Newly Amended LAMC 56.11

April 1, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Mitchell v. Los Angeles, the latest in a series of suits filed by homeless people who’ve had their property illegally confiscated by the City (see Gale Holland’s recent article for an excellent summary) took an interesting turn today, when a flurry of filings hit PACER. First of all, the plaintiffs asked the court for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order enjoining the City from confiscating their property while the case is on. They filed a huge number of declarations and other evidence in support of this application, many although not all of which can be found on our page dedicated to the case. The City asked for extra time to respond and the court granted them some.
Continue reading A Flurry of Filings in Mitchell et al. v. City of LA et al. Suggests that Homeless Advocates May be Trying to have City Enjoined from Enforcing Newly Amended LAMC 56.11 →

Lawsuits

Lavan Case Settlement Likely to Come Before Full LA City Council by End of April 2016

March 31, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

I reported last December that court filings suggested that Lavan case was likely to be close to settlement (see here for a summary of the issues involved). A Report on the Status of the Settlement Process that hit PACER just now gives more detail. In particular, the settlement agreement is scheduled for the Claims Board on April 11 and is likely to come before the full City Council by the end of April. Get the PDF here or read the important part after the break. You read it here first!
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Lawsuits

Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit Filed Yesterday Against City of Los Angeles is Assigned to District Court Judge S. James Otero

March 15, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

The lawsuit filed against the City of Los Angeles by four homeless residents, LA Catholic Worker, and LA CAN, has been assigned to James Otero.

The federal civil rights lawsuit filed yesterday by four homeless residents of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Catholic Worker, and the LA Community Action Network, was assigned today to District Court Judge S. James Otero (I have the order here). In 2013 Judge Otero decided the big lawsuit against the misuse of VA property in Westwood, thus enraging a bunch of ritzy Brentwood people who think their dogs are more important than not only the lives of veterans but than the property rights of Los Angeles founding mother Arcadia Bandini Stearns de Baker, who donated the property to the VA explicitly for the sake of veterans. Anyway, he did the right thing there, and perhaps he will here too, although the gossip around the MK.org water cooler is leaning towards a motion to switch the case over to Judge Gutierrez, probably based on a “substantial amount of factual overlap” or some such thing. We shall see, I suppose.
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Lawsuits

Late Night Declaration Filed by Ronald Whitaker Opposing Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions in LACAN/LACW v. City, CCEA

February 17, 2016 Mike Leave a comment

Earlier today the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the homeless property case, Shayla Myers and Catherine Sweetser, filed a massive application for contempt and sanctions against defendant City of Los Angeles due to their (alleged but totally plausible) recalcitrance in complying with the discovery process. Just now Deputy City Attorney Ronald Whitaker filed a declaration in opposition to this application. There’s nothing that new here, although it’s interesting to see that the City is sticking to its largely discredited claim that

in order to search emails, they need the email addresses of each individual LAPD officer. With the help of our investigator, we have tried to identify each of the individual police officers, of which there are over 400, assigned to the Central Division within the relevant timeframe. The LAPD’s IT department requires us to manually match up each officer name with their serial number, as that is how officers are identified in their email addresses. That process is and has been ongoing.

Continue reading Late Night Declaration Filed by Ronald Whitaker Opposing Plaintiffs’ Application for Contempt and Sanctions in LACAN/LACW v. City, CCEA →

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?
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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.
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Announcements, 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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