Litigation costs could have funded psychiatric care, libraries, first responders

(City, CA) – In the past two years, taxpayers in Orange County have spent more than $20 million on lawsuit settlements and awards and outside counsel in a bonanza for personal injury lawyers who seem to be increasingly viewing taxpayers as their next big meal ticket. The result is fewer dollars for needs like first responders, law enforcement, parks and libraries. The findings were issued today in a report by California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.

“When local governments are the subject of frivolous lawsuits, it is the taxpayers who pay,” said Maloney, executive director of Orange County Citizens Against Lawsuits Abuse.

“The tax that Orange County citizens are paying to fund litigation against county is enormous,” said Maloney. “These funds could be going to much more important things, such as sheriffs and emergency personnel. Instead, personal injury lawyers are lining their pockets with our money.”

According to recent budget documents, the amount spent on litigation costs for Orange County could have funded:

• Approximately 33 acute psychiatric beds at an average annual cost of $250,000 per bed, moving patients in need of assessment and treatment out of Orange County emergency rooms and into psychiatric care;
• More than two-and-a-half times the cost to the county to construct the brand new Wheeler Branch Library; or
• 196 Emergency Management employees who lead, promote, facilitate and support Orange County and operational area efforts to mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters, at an average cost of $61,075 per employee in 2006.

The information compiled in the report came from public information requests of the localities.

“Citizens of Orange County deserve to know where their tax dollars are going,” said Maloney. “That’s why OC CALA is calling for greater disclosure, more public oversight and adoption of aggressive risk management procedures to protect our local government coffers from the greedy hands of personal injury lawyers.”

The full report is available here.