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Increases in judgments and claims against the city
3:37:43
ยท
3 min
Council Member Restler raises concerns about the significant increase in payouts for judgments and claims against the city, which have doubled since FY2022. Muriel Goode-Trufant explains the primary factors driving this increase.
- Payouts for judgments and claims increased from $794 million in FY2022 to $1.52 billion in FY2024.
- The increase is primarily due to large class action settlements and reverse conviction settlements.
- The Law Department has a risk management division working on risk mitigation efforts with various agencies to prevent recurring issues.
Lincoln Restler
3:37:43
Yeah.
3:37:44
No.
3:37:44
It's one of the things that has you know, we've seen substantial cuts from the Department of Correction and the Department of Probation budget focused on reentry programming and diversion programming and ATI's and ATD's.
3:37:56
All investments that keep our young people and keep people as a whole out of incarceration and that are evidence based in work.
3:38:03
And so, you know, the particular cuts of the Department of Probation that serve young adults, the ARCHIS program, the Next Steps program, I mean these are highly effective programs with great providers.
3:38:14
And Commissioner Holmes has insisted on just cutting them.
3:38:17
And I still, I mean I ask her at every hearing and I still don't have a clue why.
3:38:22
So I just I hope that we can all work together to find ways to push to make sure that those options are available to our young people because they are much better solutions than jail.
3:38:32
Increases in judgments and claims, which I'm sure you are ready for today because the numbers are quite notable.
3:38:38
According to the PMMR, payouts made for judgments and claims against the city in state and federal court increased by 4% during the first four months of FY twenty during the first four months of fiscal year twenty five when compared to the same period last year.
3:38:52
In fiscal year twenty four, payments had hit a recent high of $1,520,000,000, up from 1,210,000,000.00 in FY '20 '3 and up from just 794,000,000 in FY '20 '2.
3:39:04
So we're looking at double since FY '20 '2.
3:39:08
What drove this increase in payouts since FY '20, What's driven this increase in payout?
3:39:13
Is it primarily the Child Victims Act?
Muriel Goode-Trufant
3:39:16
Those particular increases are the result of two categories.
3:39:23
One, large class action settlements, and second, reverse conviction settlements.
Lincoln Restler
3:39:31
Okay.
Muriel Goode-Trufant
3:39:32
And so within that those categories, for example, in the previous fiscal year, FY '24, there was a very large class action entitled Lynch that resolved that was approximately $170,000,000 and that is a significant component of the judgment of claims.
3:40:05
There were also a number of reverse conviction cases where payouts to individuals were more than $10,000,000 each.
3:40:16
So if you have five such payouts in a large class action, you can see quite readily how you can have a spike in a particular year.
Lincoln Restler
3:40:30
Fair.
3:40:31
It's just that we've seen a steady increase over a number of years and to go from 700 to 1.5 is, you know, those are big swings.
3:40:41
And I get that a few key cases can have an outsized impact, but is the law department taking steps to reduce the judgment and claims expenditures?
3:40:49
Is there anything that you all can do to try and rein in this expense?
Muriel Goode-Trufant
3:40:56
There are a number of things that we do.
3:40:58
We have a risk management division that works both in the department and with agencies at risk mitigation efforts and and particular look at matters that have caused the city to be liable on a class basis for particular activities and get agencies to change behavior such that so those things don't happen again.