A12 From Page One settlements from A1
suits, tying up government law- yers for months and years when an early settlement can resolve a dispute quickly and less expen- sively. “Their approach is never settle
anything early,” said Peter Greni- er, a lawyer who has handled cases against the city. “Everyone, including the D.C. taxpayer, ends up spending a lot more money because you have to get experts and you have to spendmoney on depositions and subpoenas, even in the most obvious and clearest of cases. I’ve yet to have a case withD.C.where they have settled early on, and I’ve never lost a case against D.C.”
Guiding principles Peter Nickles, the District’s
attorney general, whose staff ne- gotiates the settlements, said that his guiding principle is to be “very tough about spending tax- payers’ money” but that settle- ments are unavoidable in a liti- gious culture. “There are more lawyers per
capita in this city than any other city in the world,” Nickles said. “Andwhat do lawyers like to do?” The list of legal settlements
reached by the District is a windowon costlymistakesmade by the city’s bureaucracy. Al- though numerous agencies are sued, the police department is the target of themost cases—92 over the three-year span—and is responsible for nearly $9million in settlements, The Post’s analy- sis found. Some cases result in large
settlements, such as the $1.2 million awarded to a couple whose two children were killed by a driver fleeing from a police cruiser on Florida Avenue NE. Other cases end in relatively small payouts yet still suggest confounding bureaucratic laps- es, such as the family that hap- pened to make an inquiry about a relative who was a prisoner in the D.C. jail and thereby learned that he had died of lung cancer four months earlier and had been cremated without notice to the relatives. Four family mem- bers split $11,500. Or there was Brian Suther-
land, a bicyclist who was acci- dentally struck by a trash can that a sanitationworker threwas the cyclist rode past 22nd and P streets NW. Sutherland fell off
EZ SU
KLMNO
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010 Cases open window onto workings of D.C. government
Settlement payouts in the District Residents who sue the D.C. government can turn their purported injuries, traumas and other grievances into sizable legal claims. In many cases, the District’s attorneys and the plaintiff reach a settlement before the dispute goes to court.
SETTLEMENT AMOUNTS, all agencies combined, 2007 - 2009
LARGEST PAYOUTS, by agency Mayor’s Office of
Economic Development Police
Fire and emergency medical services Public schools Mental health
MOST CASES, by agency Police
Public schools Public works
Transportation Corrections
MOST CLAIMS, by type Auto negligence
Unspecified reason Police false arrest Contract dispute Slip and fall
SOURCE: Office of Risk Management for the District
the bike and suffered injuries to “all parts of his body, some of whichwere permanent, especial- ly to his right elbow and right little finger,” according to his claim. Sutherland, who also said he endured “anxiety” and “an- guish,” sued for $600,000.He got $25,000 fromthe city. Sutherland declined to com-
ment on his settlement, a reti- cence expressed by many plain- tiffs, who said they don’t want to publicize their cases. Gerald Goz, the Arizona tour-
ist who won $60,000 after trip- ping and falling at Connecticut Avenue and Bancroft Place, also declined to comment, saying: “I don’t want to discuss it, period. Look it up in the court records. If you call again, I’ll consider it
Topic: local
Run Date: 10 / 11 / 2010 Size: 23p2 x 6.6” Artist: rivero
THE DISTRICT $50 million
Total payouts, in millions $17.69*
8.74 2.25 2.07 1.88
Total payouts, in millions
$8.74 2.07 1.56 1.69 1.33
Total payouts, in millions
$3.18 2.77 4.31 24.84 0.89
*Reflects $15 million in a breach-of-contract case that began during the administration of Mayor Anthony A. Williams.
THE WASHINGTON POST
harassment.” Goz’s attorney, Judy Feinberg,
setlements.AAA PROOF 2
said “slip and fall” cases are difficult to win because a plain- tiffmust prove that the city could have prevented the injury. In Goz’s case, Feinberg said, shewas able to show that the defective sidewalk had existed for years and that D.C. police officers and utility workers could and should have reported the problem. “I don’t take most of these
kinds of cases, and I take them only if I feel like I’m going to win,” she said, adding that Goz was “very happy” with the settle- ment, which covered hismedical needs, lost wages and her fee. Not all “slip and fall” settle-
ments are so generous. David Steiner, a Justice Department
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“I definitely didn’t get what I wanted,” says David Steiner, a Justice Department lawyer who was awarded $4,500 after injuring his knee outside aUStreetMetro station and alsoUnion Station.
“There are more lawyers per capita in this city than any other city in the world. And what do lawyers like to do?” —Peter Nickles, D.C. attorney general.
attorney, filed a six-figure lawsuit after ripping up his knee by falling twice within weeks, once outside the U Street Metro sta- tion and again outside Union Station. He received a $4,500 settlement, not nearly enough, he said, to compensate him for several knee operations. His injuries forced himto give
up two passions, jogging and ballroom dancing. “I thought I’d get better enough, but it never happened,” Steiner said. “I defi- nitely didn’t get what I wanted.” Robert Lederman, an artist
and activist, drew publicity in the 1990s by challenging then- New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s crackdown on side- walk artists. In 1997, he stood outside the U.S. Capitol handing out leaflets, prompting police to warn that they would arrest him if he did not stop.
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“If you arrestme, Iwill sue and
I’m going to win,” he recalled telling officers. He was right. A decade later, he pocketed a $10,000 settlement, which he said he uses to support his family. “What am I going to do, hire
hookers and get a bag of heroin?” Lederman asked. “It’s not like I won amillion dollars.”
Identifying behaviors The District sets aside about
$20 million annually to pay for settlements and judgments. D.C. Councilmember PhilMendelson (D-At Large), whose committee oversees the attorney general’s office, said the constancy of the payouts suggests that the city’s government is failing to “identify the behaviors in an agency that generate these lawsuits and make the agency change their behavior.” “We ought to be reducing the
number of mistakes we make,” Mendelson said. Once those mistakes are clear,
plaintiffs’ attorneys say, the Dis- trict should resolve disputes and
move on. Mara Verheyden-Hill- iard, an attorney for anti-World Bank demonstrators arrested at Pershing Park in 2002, said the District took eight years to settle a case in which, she alleges, police had brazenly violated pro- testers’ rights by hogtying and detaining them for hours, in some cases without allowing themto use the bathroom. “They engage in scorched-
earth litigation tactics to get plaintiffs to take toothless settle- ments,” Verheyden-Hilliard said. “If they violate civil rights, they need to own up to it, but they want a war of attrition.” Nickles said the District is not
seeking “to grind anyone down. We have a lot of cases that are frivolous. We’re not going to sit there and pay $5 [million] and $10million to settle them.” The District took nearly four
years to settle the $1.5 million lawsuitRyan Shelton filed after a police officer who was chasing him allegedly ran over him with a patrol car. Shelton, who was not arrested, suffered “abrasions, a dislocated hip, a fractured femur and pelvis, and a lacerated liver, which required surgery,” according to his complaint. He was awarded $125,000, an
amount his mother, Tracey, said has done little to erase themem- ory of the incident. “He’s bitter about it,” she said. “It’s some- thing he needs to get help with psychologically. That’s a hurting thing.”
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