Los Angeles Sexual Assault Lawyer Blog

Officials with the Los Angeles Police Department are attempting to quell the fervor over a recent Inspector General audit indicating that the city had spent some $110 million in jury awards over the last six years, with nearly a third of those involving LAPD personnel.

Our Los Angeles Sexual Assault Lawyers understand that those cases involved allegations of discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation.

The revelation of the scope of employment-related litigation at the agency has resulted in an inquiry by the police commission to determine why these figures are so high and what can be done.

The agency is also accused of overseeing a legal affairs department that routinely destroys case files, keeps lawsuit records that are inaccurate and incomplete and has no system in place designed to learn from prior mistakes.

Several weeks after that initial report was issued, the police department has responded to say that the report was out-of-date and that it has already taken effective measures to reduce its liability costs where disgruntled workers are concerned.

Chief Charlie Beck says that the Inspector General was analyzing cases that were closed between 2005 and 2012. However, he said all those allegations were first lodged prior to the fall of 2009, with some of them dating as far back as 1999.

Therefore, Beck said in a response letter to the commission, these were things that didn't happen on his watch. It was the previous administration, he said, that should be held responsible for the issues at hand.

Still, he said department leaders agree with some points of the audit, while countering a number of others.

In addition to the timeline dispute, the police chief also says that the agency doesn't store litigation records on past employment lawsuits because those files are maintained by the city attorney's office. He said there was no need for the police department to continue storing duplicate records, so they were destroyed. However, he contends they are still accessible at the city attorney's office.

Still, some of the police commissioners expressed concerns that files weren't maintained within the department, meaning they weren't accessible to internal personal as a reference. Other commissioners said it wasn't so much an issue of having duplicate copies as having a system in place that could help avoid risk of litigation in the future.

The police department's administrator, in responding to the police commission's inquiry, said that there had already been a steep decline in the amount of employee-related litigation. Eight cases have been filed so far this year, as compared to 31 lawsuits that were filed during fiscal year 2011-2012.

But the police commissioners want to see more action. They have directed the department to set up a meeting with the police unions to establish a mediation program. This would be a forum for disgruntled employees to have their cases heard prior to having them go to trial.

From a plaintiff attorney perspective, it may slow the litigation process to some extent. Alternatively, settlement agreements might be reached sooner.