After two Los Angeles Superior Court interpreters and a traffic clerk, died of COVID-19 in recent weeks, a group of attorneys have filed a lawsuit to stop in-person appearances for “non-essential civil matters” such as traffic and eviction trials.
“This case is about a uniquely dire public health crisis and the unsafe and unlawful conditions it has created in Los Angeles Superior Court,” said the lawsuit, filed by the public interest law firm Public Counsel on behalf of the Inner City Law Center and the Legal Aid Foundation. “While many courts have shut their doors to in-person appearances, Los Angeles civil legal aid attorneys and disproportionately vulnerable indigent litigants must risk their health and lives to adjudicate non-urgent, non-essential civil matters in unlawful detainer and traffic courts.”
Staff attorneys and clients are required to appear in person “to adjudicate civil matters as minor as a cracked windshield,” the lawsuit states.
Tracy Rice
| publiccounsel.org
Crowded court facilities make it impossible to comply with COVID-19 safety guidelines, the complaint further alleges.
“Every day, hundreds of Angelenos crowd into Los Angeles Superior Court courthouses to enter pleas on traffic tickets or defend against eviction lawsuits,” the suit states. “ Public health experts have determined that not only are these conditions unsafe and likely to result in transmission of the virus, they are ripe for a 'super-spreader' event. Because Los Angeles Superior Court does not engage in symptom checking or contact tracing, it is unknown how many of the county’s thousands of daily new COVID-19 cases have originated in the courts.”
A judge announced Jan. 15 that two court employees, a traffic clerk and a court interpreter, died of COVID-19, the lawsuit states. A second interpreter died on Jan. 17, it said.
Public Counsel declined to comment on the lawsuit, which asks the court to "close Los Angeles Superior Court courthouses to all in-person appearances in traffic and unlawful detainer matters" until they are no longer a public health threat.