Rocky Delgadillo's office just cost you about $4 million

After Sandra Griffin sued the city of L.A. -- she suffered brain damage when a speeding LAPD vehicle broadsided her parked car in Compton in 2006 -- her lawyer offered an out-of-court settlement. What happened next cost L.A. taxpayers millions, our own Jeff Gottlieb has learned:

In early July, a jury awarded nearly $6.9 million to Sandra Griffin, who sued the city after she suffered brain damage when a speeding police car broadsided her in South Los Angeles.

But Brian Dunn, the attorney for Sandra Griffin, said that a month before the trial, he had offered to settle the case for $2.5 million. The L.A. city attorney's office wouldn't budge from its $500,000 offer, he said. "The settlement conference was a joke," Dunn said.

He probably would have come down even further from the initial $2.5 million offer, Dunn said, but the city showed no interest. Now the city attorney's office says an appeal is under consideration.

Frank Mateljan, a press deputy for the city attorney's office, said today he can't discuss the settlement negotiation due to office policy and attorney-client confidentiality.

Wait, there's more -- because the city rejected the offer, taxpayers could also be on the hook for the costs of Griffin's expert witnesses and other fees.

-- Veronique de Turenne

Comments

[guity]

So? How many of these cases are they screwing up like this, and out of how many total cases? If 9 out of every 10 cases are getting messed up, then it is newsworthy. If 1 out of a thousand gets screwed up, then it isn't newsworthy. If you have no idea how many out of how many cases are getting screwed up, then nobody has the slightest idea of whether this is newsworthy or not. I guess presenting this as news allows you to save yourself the hard work of doing some research, at the (slight) expense of the city.

[gary]

Rocky Delgadillo is a joke and needs to be ran out of office! During a time of financial crisis, we, the taxpaying citizens have to pay for his blunder

[Hubris Unlimited]

Nice to know $4 million is chump change to you.

[bwld01@gmail.com]

This is irresponsible journalism at its worst. Everyone knows that juries sometimes do the unexpected and the story provides no information for the premise that the decision not to settle was wrong BASED ON THE INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT THE TIME rather than on the Times' Monday morning quarterbacking. I'm disgusted.

[Nate]

As an attorney who defends police departments, I have some expertise on the issue. From the information presented here, it is impossible to say whether or not the City Attorney's office made the correct judgment in rejecting the $2.5 million demand. Making and rejecting settlement offers is all about taking some risks and rejecting others.

To claim that Delgadillo's office "cost you about $4 milliion" is very irresponsible and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how litigation works.

To counter this, the LA Times could pick cases where the City Attorney's office rejected a settlement demand, went to trial, and obtained a much better result. Where's the headline that Delgadillo saved the city millions in those cases?

[Hugo]

Nate...LACA staff are not supposed to be leaving comments on LA Times blogs, it's against internal policy.

But you are allowed to weigh in on Paris Hilton, animal cruelty cases, or other headline grabbing cases. Because as you know, Delgadillo is ALL about grabbing headlines.

What's a few million to the city of L.A? Eh.

Delgadillo is a joke. Magic Johnson probably regrets supporting him in 2000.

[Ruby Jackson]

Blogging is not journalism, at least not at the Times. It's just a roundup and recap. That is why the LA Times is making a huge mistake to put the emphasis on blogging, rather than journalism (original writing) and investigative reporting.