Right to fight city hall isn't 'abuse'
| Thursday, Nov 26 2009 04:19 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Nov 26 2009 04:19 PM
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A recent commentary by Michael Turnipseed, executive director of the Kern Taxpayers Association, was inaccurate and inflammatory. In his Nov. 21 article, "Litigation is eating away our tax dollars," Turnipseed quoted so-called research by Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA) to criticize how much California's counties and cities spent on lawsuits during a two-year period.
This business-insurance coalition advocates that citizen lawsuits against California cities and counties be squelched. Its goal is to keep more of the premiums paid by cities and counties in CALA's own pockets, instead of paying legitimate citizen injury claims.
Attacking our constitutional right to a jury trial, this coalition exhibits no faith that juries of citizens can weed out legitimate lawsuits from frivolous ones, and award reasonable compensation where it is proven and justified.
CALA reviewed money spent on verdicts, settlements and outside counsel in Alameda, Fresno, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, as well as in the cities of Anaheim, Bakersfield, Fresno, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego and San Jose.
"California has 58 counties and 480 cities, so this is just the tip of the iceberg," said CALA's executive director Tom Scott. "With devastating budget cuts hitting cities and counties up and down the state, there are countless other ways this money could have been spent."
The two-year total CALA listed for Bakersfield was $5,350,925 and $2,446,081 for Kern County. But CALA's bogus totals did not distinguish who started the court fights, nor did they note the possibility that Bakersfield and Kern County will be reimbursed for costs.
For example, what's Kern County supposed to do? Let Southern California counties continue to dump their gooey sludge (human waste) onto local farmland because Kern officials do not want to spend the money to fight the polluting scheme in court? By the way, Kern recently won a round in federal court to stop the practice.
And when a guy is just snoozing on the grass in a Bakersfield park and gets run over by a city truck, is it "frivolous" to ask the court for damages?
What about the county inmate who was beaten to death by jailers? The inmate's family received a settlement, and the detention deputies received criminal penalties.
It is not just private citizens suing government agencies. For example, Kern County supervisors authorized many thousands of dollars in legal fees be spent to get back just a few thousands of dollars from former Kern County Sheriff Carl Sparks. Bakersfield has spent more than a few legal dollars battling its neighbor Shafter over expansion plans.
In his Californian commentary Turnipseed hypocritically rails against what he contends is a system of financing an "easy payday for personal injury lawyers and greedy plaintiffs. I don't know about you, but I work too hard for my money to see it lining the pockets of a plaintiff's attorney who targeted my city or county as a deep pocket."
Some of Turnipseed's and Kerntax's most prominent supporters and members, specifically oil companies, have frequently sued Kern County to challenge tax assessments and have cost local taxpayers millions of dollars in litigation over the years.
Cities and counties already have built-in protections granted by the Legislature to avoid unjustifiable claims. Many protections far exceed those of any ordinary citizen or business.
The problem CALA has is accepting the notion that this nation was founded on a system of checks and balances, with three branches of government -- the legislative, executive and judicial branches -- "checking" each other.
The right to a jury trial is one of the most fundamental citizen rights guaranteed in our Constitution. Without the ability of citizens to turn to the courts to complain, Americans would be living under a dictatorship. We should not let groups like CALA strip us of those rights for their own special narrow interests.
Timothy Lemucchi is a Bakersfield attorney.
