Los Angeles agrees to pay $828m to settle more sexual abuse claims | Los Angeles
Six months after approving the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history, officials in Los Angeles announced that the county had agreed to tentatively pay the whopping sum of nearly $1 billion to resolve more than 400 additional claims against county employees.
In April, the Los Angeles County approved a historic $4 billion settlement involving nearly 11,000 plaintiffs and decades-old allegations of sexual abuse at juvenile facilities in Los Angeles. On Friday, the county announced it had reached another major $828 million settlement, pending approval from the board of supervisors, the county governing body and the county claims board.
“Our settlements balance our obligation to compensate victims and be compassionate about their experiences with the need to implement strong protections to protect taxpayers from fraud,” Kathryn Barger, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement.
There are another 2,500 outstanding cases that are not covered by either agreement, according to the county, and that number is expected to grow. The settlements have contributed to the county’s unprecedented financial problems following bushfires that ravaged the area earlier this year.
In announcing the new settlement, county officials said “the credibility of each individual claim will be reviewed, and plaintiffs determined to have filed fraudulent claims will not receive any money from the settlement.”
Authorities are investigating allegations that some people were paid to file lawsuits. Nine plaintiffs in the initial settlement said they were paid to file suit, and four said they filed fraudulent claims, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation.
The lawsuits, filed by thousands of people, date back to 1959, alleging they were mistreated and sexually abused in foster care and juvenile detention facilities in the county. They were able to sue because of a California law that went into effect in 2020 that suspends the statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual abuse, allowing them to file a lawsuit for three years.
The county’s ability to evaluate the validity of the claims was hampered by a lack of records, the sheer number of cases and the court’s imposition of limits on legal discovery, officials said.
Under the $4 billion settlement, the amount paid to each plaintiff could range from $100,000 to $3 million. If the latest settlement is approved, individual damages would be determined by factors including the severity of the alleged misconduct.
The county said in a statement that the allegations made in the April settlement by the law firm Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, will be subject to additional review.
Some of the plaintiffs represented by the firm told the LA Times that people they met outside the county social services office offered them money to file claims, drove them to the DTLA firm, and then paid them amounts ranging from $50 to $200 each. Non-lawyers are prohibited under California law from encouraging people to file lawsuits at a firm.
DTLA denied any wrongdoing. Plaintiffs represented by the firm may be asked to conduct additional interviews and present more evidence of the allegations, depending on the nature of the claim and suspected fraud, the county said.
The county may also refer attorneys accused of failing to pay restitution to the state bar for possible disciplinary action, officials said.
DTLA Law Group said it filtered about 13,000 inquiries and accepted only a fraction of the cases.
“We do not pay our clients to file lawsuits and we strongly oppose such actions. If we learn that anyone affiliated with us in any capacity has done such a thing, we will immediately terminate our relationship with them,” the firm said. “We want justice for the real victims”
The district is taking further precautions to prevent abuse and take action quickly if it occurs, officials said. This includes a new hotline for county employees to report allegations of child sexual abuse, which is expected to be available by the end of the year.
But officials said the law allowing the lawsuits puts severe financial stress on the county and requires cuts to “critical” programs and services, and that “common-sense fixes that strike the right balance for victims, L.A. County and other public agencies” are needed.
“L.A. county and other local governments must balance their obligations to past victims with the need to avoid devastating fiscal impacts that would undermine the social safety net services our youth, families, and communities depend on today,” said acting county executive Joe Nicchitta.
The $4 billion deal in April far surpassed the $2.6 billion deal reached in 2022; The Boy Scouts of America was, at the time, the largest mass sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history.
