No-Settlement Policies Part I

The Mayor of a city in New Mexico implemented a "no settlement" policy a few years back. He will settle NO CASE involving police misconduct; they all have to be tried. Even if the plaintiff wins on liability at SJ, the mayor will force trial on damages. Federal judges don't like it, feeling some cases should settle, and they have other cases to try.

There have been about 3 exceptions, e.g., when the cop is prosecuted criminally for the conduct or some other unique circumstance.

Nevertheless, it has kept a lot of lawyers from filing those 2-10,000 dollar cases that you figure you will just settle, leaving injured plaintiffs without meaningful recourse, and allowing brutality to go on unabated.

No-Settlement Policies Part II

Here in Seattle we also have no-settlement policy. In addition, the City’s private defense law firm has a monopoly on the police misconduct work. They have a scorched-earth type of defense litigation policy, relying upon the City treasury to fund their actions. The police union has a clause in their contract that requires this particular law firm defend the police officers.

For an example of how it works, I represented a man injured by the police. A lawsuit was filed for $11,000.00. The City deferred to its defense counsel who continued to litigate. At the end of the case, I did a public disclosure request for the defense firm’s billing records. They billed the city just over $87,000.00 on a case that could have gone away for $11,000.00.

Since 2002, this law firm has billed the City around $2,600,000.00 in fees for police misconduct cases.