Claims, lawsuits cost Modesto $2.3 million in past year

Modesto paid $2.3 million in its last budget year to resolve claims, lawsuits and other actions brought against it, including one in which a car stored at the police evidence lot was broken into and damaged.

Modesto made 21 payments involving city trees or limbs falling and smashing into parked cars, fences and other property and 33 payments involving city drivers hitting other vehicles or property.

The spending was for Modesto’s 2017-18 budget, which ended June 30, and breaks down to $2 million to resolve claims, lawsuits and similar matters, and $296,338 for the city’s legal costs. The city paid the entire $2.3 million. The city’s insurance pays costs in excess of $1 million per incident, and none of the incidents met that threshold.

But as in past years, just a handful of incidents accounted for most of the cost.

For instance, The Bee reported in November the city paid $625,341 to resolve a 2015 lawsuit involving a traffic accident. The city paid a $487,500 settlement and $137,841 in legal costs defending itself.

A man and woman on a motorcycle were severely injured when a car pulled in front of them as the driver made a left turn from an apartment complex parking lot onto a residential street.

The lawsuit said the city contributed to the wreck because the 6-foot-long red, no-parking stripe it had painted along the curb by the driveway was not sufficient to give drivers leaving the complex a good view of traffic.

As in previous years, traffic wrecks and city trees were the most common reasons people sought payment from the city. They accounted for 54 of the 101 claims, lawsuits and similar matters the city resolved in 2017-18.

The payouts included:

▪ $4,697 to a woman whose car was broken into and damaged while stored at the Police Department’s evidence lot. Other vehicles were broken into, and police caught a suspect. The car was used in a fatal drive-by shooting. The car was stored for about five years, and it can take that long to prosecute homicide cases in Stanislaus County.

▪ $15,000 because the city’s flushing of a sewer line caused sewer water to flood and back up in a home.

▪ $6,500 when a water main break flooded a yard and storage unit.

Modesto has spent about $1 million to about $2 million annually in recent years to resolve claims, lawsuits and similar actions. That includes legal costs. So the most recent amount of $2.3 million is slightly more. But the city is taking steps it believes will reduce its risks and result in fewer lawsuits and claims.

The Police Department has started reviewing its traffic wrecks to look for the common factors and provide training based on those factors. Police officers have been involved in more than 230 wrecks in the past 4 1/2 years, though they were not at fault in all of them.

And Risk Manager Cathy Talongwa said Modesto expects to hire a safety officer within a couple of months. She said the officer’s duties will include helping employees reduce the city’s risks.

Modesto has looked into comparing what it pays for claims and lawsuits against what similar cities pay as a way of measuring how well it manages risk. But city officials have said there are too many differences among cities to make meaningful comparisons.

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This story was originally published August 5, 2018 at 2:32 PM with the headline "Claims, lawsuits cost Modesto $2.3 million in past year."