News
City Att'y Announces Settlement In Principle Of Grant Case (wrong man arrested as rapist) And Provides Litigation History Info
(July 15, 2003) -- City Attorney Bob Shannon publicly announced at the July 15 City Council meeting that the City of LB has reached a settlement in principle in the case of Grant vs. City of Long Beach (in which the plaintiff prevailed in a federal suit against the city for arrest as the "Belmont Shore" rapist...which he wasn't. Another suspect is now in custody.]
Pursuant to Council authorization, City Attorney Shannon indicated that an agreement in principle had been reached to settle the case for an amount slightly in excess of $2.2 million...which is at least $100,000 less than is currently due and owing by the city.
In addition to announcing the settlement in principle, City Attorney Shannon released a brief (five paragraph) memo setting forth the litigation history "as it relates to efforts to settle the lawsuit and to confirm that the City Council has retained and has exercised full decision making authority." The memo cites City Council appeal directives extending back to January, 2001...including a November 2002 Council directive (5-0) to file a petition for reconsideration. We post City Attorney Shannon's memo verbatim on a link below.
In reporting settlement in principle of the Grant case at the Council meeting, City Attorney Shannon said:
This is somewhat premature as I don't read the Brown [open meetings] Act as requiring a reporting out at this time, but since this matter does have a good deal of interest, I've been authorized by you [the City Council] to report out at this time that we've reached an agreement in principle on the Grant case, Grant v. City of Long Beach, and this agreement was reached pursuant to an authorization granted to me by the City Council last week. We proceeded into negotiations and in fact, we've been negotiating on this lawsuit for the better part of a year, since late autumn of the year 2002.
I'm not in a position to give you the exact amount because we're currently doing computations. The amount will be slightly in excees of $2.2 million, but I want to indicate that this amount is at least $100,000 less than is currently due and owing by the city.
City Attorney Shannon's memo can be viewed in pdf form at: City Attorney memo re Grant case litigation history.
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