Modesto pays more than $2 million to resolve claims, lawsuits

Modesto spent more than $2 million last year to resolve claims and lawsuits filed against the city, including those in which a cop crashed his patrol car into a pizzeria, officers peppered a house with bullets during a confrontation with an armed man, and a city sewer truck struck an art gallery’s awning and is accused of driving off without notifying the gallery.

The city paid $1,387,584 to resolve the claims and lawsuits and $647,640 in legal costs. But one lawsuit accounted for more than two-thirds of what Modesto paid.

The Bee reported in July that the city had agreed to pay $850,000 to settle a 2011 federal lawsuit that claimed one of its officers used excessive force and was negligent when he shot a suicidal man armed with a pocketknife in 2010. Modesto also paid $538,771 in legal costs to defend itself in the lawsuit. A jury had found the man was primarily responsible for his injuries. But it also found the officer had violated the man’s civil rights, which made the city responsible for his legal costs.

Other than that settlement, Modesto Risk Manager Bev Jensen said, the city had a good year. She said it is a good result any time the city spends $1 million or less on claims and lawsuits in a given year.

And though the claims and lawsuits and their legal costs totaled more than $2 million, Modesto paid about $1.6 million of that, because insurance covered about $400,000 of the excessive force and negligence case.

Vehicle crashes and city trees were the most common reasons for a claim or lawsuit. Of the 122 claims and lawsuits Modesto resolved last year, 34 were for vehicle crashes and 34 were for trees, with trees or limbs toppling and damaging cars, homes and other property. And in some cases, city tree trimmers were responsible for the damage.

Here are some of the city’s payouts for last year:

▪  It paid $9,423.71 to Chicago Pizza after an officer crashed his patrol car into the La Loma Avenue eatery in October. Police said the officer was en route to help with a vehicle pursuit when he crashed about 3 a.m.

▪  It paid $12,174.88 to the owner of a Lance Street rental home after an April confrontation outside the home between officers and what police said was a man armed with a loaded handgun. Police fatally shot the man, whom they identified as Lonnie Ball.

“Police had a shootout with tenant’s estranged husband,” the claim reads. “Police shot up the house – outside + inside.” The claim states there were 13 bullet holes in the front of the house.

▪  It paid $2,996.23 to the Chartreuse Muse after a city sewer truck in September backed into and smashed an awning along one side of the downtown business. The claim states the business learned about the damage by reviewing surveillance video, even though the city worker got out of his truck and inspected the damage before walking away and another worker witnessed the incident. Jensen said whether the city employees notified the business is part of an ongoing personnel investigation.

▪  It paid $5,847.87 after a community services officer failed to stop at a red light on Briggsmore Avenue in April and rear-ended a car, setting off a chain-reaction crash involving two other cars.

Jensen said 300 to 350 claims are filed against Modesto annually, and the city ends up paying about a third of them.

Modesto had looked into comparing what it pays for claims and lawsuits against what similar cities pay as a way of measuring how well it manages its risks. But Jensen said it turned out there were too many differences among the cities to make a comparison meaningful. She said Modesto is gauging how well it manages risk by comparing what it pays in a given year against what it has paid out in previous years. Modesto has paid out about $1 million to about $2 million annually in recent years.

This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 3:23 PM with the headline "Modesto pays more than $2 million to resolve claims, lawsuits."