Is the Police Commission starting to wake up?
Maybe…
During the July 2 session of the Police Commission, the Inspector General presented the results of an investigation into why the Department is losing so much money in lawsuits to officers who sue the Department for various violations of their rights. The Inspector General’s audit found that the City of Los Angeles pays out as much money for management abuses against Department employees as the City pays out for officer involved traffic accidents. That sum is $31 million for each incident, according to the IG. Another estimated $43 million is spent in defending against these types of cases. That’s $74 million of taxpayer money going out of the City coffers.
The two basic questions the IG asked in the audit were, “What lessons has the Department learned from these lawsuits, and what has been done to reduce these losses to the taxpayer?” The short answer is nothing. Neither learning nor planning has taken place.
The Department disputes this, of course, but that is to be expected. The big news for LAPD officers is that the Police Commission has shown an interest in this issue. Commissioner Rafael Bernardino called the audit findings “horrible.” “A fail across the board,” he said. The IG report noted that in 2007 the mayor had issued instructions charging all City department heads to find ways to reduce litigation. Apparently, LAPD management didn’t take this seriously despite hiring a risk manager.
There has always been an intense interest by the Commission in issues such as shootings, uses of force, pursuits, biased policing, discipline and other situations that usually engender criticizing you and increasing pressure on the Department to control your actions. The rights of the public were always foremost in the minds of the commissioners, but the rights of the officers seemed to be ignored. Department management could treat you any way they wanted without fear of Commission criticism. The Commission was looking at what you do, not what was done to you.
The Inspector General’s report and the accompanying press interest may change that and focus attention on something the League has been complaining about for a long time: the treatment of employees by some Department managers.
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to understand the dynamics of losing $31 million in lawsuits. An employee is, or feels, mistreated. The employee complains. The employee is ignored. The employee is referred to an attorney. The attorney files a lawsuit. A jury awards the employee money when they learn how the employee was mistreated and how Department management refused to do anything about it.
It also doesn’t take a brain surgeon to understand why nothing is being done about the problem. It is simple: Department management does not suffer any negative consequences. The $31 million comes out of the City’s general fund, not the Department’s budget. Other people pay, not the LAPD. The city attorney provides a free defense (to the Department) and managers who either caused the problem resulting in the jury verdict, or who failed to do anything about the problem, suffer no personal consequences. Plaintiff’s Attorney Greg Smith, who obtained several million-dollar verdicts, joked to the Daily Breeze in 2011 that if he sued a supervisor, that person would be promoted within the next six months.
The League has long been in favor of a mediation program to resolve working environment issues before they reach the litigation stage, but it seems to be stalled. League President Tyler Izen was quoted in the media as saying the League “is anxious to reduce the amount of litigation damages that the City is paying out by improving the working environment for our employees.”
High-level City officials have a strange view when it comes to LAPD officers filing lawsuits. One councilmember is quoted by the Times as blaming the City’s job-protection rules that make it too difficult to fire officers who cause workplace problems. The same article noted that LAPD officers brought an average of three times more lawsuits a year per officer than officers in Chicago or the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Maybe the councilmember’s attitude shows us why the problem has not been handled. The employees are blamed, not the managers. This topsy-turvy logic is like blaming liquor store owners for being robbed. Isn’t it more logical to draw the conclusion that LAPD officers sue their managers three times more often than LASD officers because LAPD managers are three times more abusive? Cops are cops, no matter where they work. Witness any national convention of law enforcement and see how officers relate to each other. There isn’t a special class of officers hired by LAPD who are more litigious than the class of officers hired next door by the county. LAPD management just has to be forced to recognize that it is not a type of employee but the LAPD management culture that causes three times as many officers to air their complaints in front of a jury.
The IG’s report might just send us down that road of discovery if the commissioners are waking up to this fact. It will, however, require the Commission to grab the issue by the throat with the same gusto previously shown on use-of-force issues.
The solution is simple: treat officers fairly. There is no downside to doing this. Those who deserve to be disciplined can still be disciplined. Any bad cop can be fired in a fair, above-the-board administrative discipline hearing. It’s a preponderance of the evidence standard in a hearing that has few evidence rules, in front of two LAPD managers (who owe their careers to the Chief) who sent the officer to the hearing in the first place. How hard can it be to convict the guilty? It’s not even hard to convict the innocent! Why the necessity to play games like refusing to provide evidence, frustrating representation, and using unfair investigation tactics — all of which increase the chances of officers filing lawsuits?
If the Police Commission dedicates as much time as it did to the issue of biased policing and rules for the fair treatment of employees, lawsuits could become a thing of the past. The Inspector General has opened the door. Let’s go through it. Maybe we can save $74 million. We could use it to actually pay for overtime!
For hyperlinks to various things mentioned in this article, go to my website at www.warningbells.com.
Be legally careful out there.
