Total litigation costs paid out by Los Angeles County during the 2022-2023 fiscal year shot up 129% to more than $340 million, largely driven by several unusually large legal settlements, according to recently released county reports.
Much of the sharp rise in the legal costs recorded during that time period were due to high-profile, multimillion-dollar settlements, including litigation related to the handling of photos by first-responders after the helicopter crash that killed basketball star Kobe Bryant and eight others. The county also paid out a $32 million settlement as a result of a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of a 10-year-old boy against the county Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).
A report by County Counsel Dawyn Harrison’s office on litigation costs blamed this increase not only on the $174.9 million increase in legal judgments and settlements but on a $14 million increase in funds paid to outside law firms. In fact, total law firm fees the county paid to contract law firms jumped 29% between fiscal year 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, the report states.
“There were 1,466 more lawsuits filed, eight more judgments and 53 more settlements in FY 22-23 than in FY 21-22,” the county counsel’s report says.
Another judgment affecting the county’s legal costs was the payout of $22.5 million in 2022-2023 to resolve an eminent domain case related to the county’s acquisition of blighted property to create the county’s first college-prep boarding school, according to the report.
In addition, a federal class-action lawsuit involving female detention-facility inmates who were subjected to strip searches with no privacy and in unsanitary conditions led to a judgment against the county of nearly $17.7 million over the same time period.
The county Sheriff’s Department, with judgment costs of more than $28 million, topped the list of county departments when it comes to litigation costs, according to the county. The Sheriff’s Department racked up nearly half of all county litigation costs, the report states.
Among specific county departments, the DCFS saw an increase of 824 lawsuits in 2022-2023 compared to the previous fiscal year, according to the county counsel. By contrast, the Sheriff’s Department reported an increase of only 18 lawsuits over the same time period.
One potential driver of litigation not mentioned in the report is a 2019 measure, the Child Victims Act (Assembly Bill 218), which extended the statute of limitations for sexual assault cases. The law has led to thousands of new legal claims being filed against county agencies, and many of those cases will go to trial or be settled in the coming years, according to the county.
“The county is managing thousands of claims that will significantly increase costs primarily to the Department of Children and Family Services and the Probation Department over the next several years,” an annual risk management report released by the county’s chief executive officer, Fesia Davenport, states.
That report also indicated that the county sustained a 25.4% increase in costs stemming from liability and workers’ compensation. In terms of medical malpractice liability claims, the county saw an increase in cases of 83.3% over the same time period.
The total cost of litigation, including legal fees, is on the rise in both the public and private sectors, according to the county, and a slowdown in the processing of cases during the Covid pandemic has led to a large volume of settlements and judgments during the 2022-2023 fiscal year.