“Washington [the state] is getting hit with so many lawsuits over budget cuts that it’s not clear at times who controls the state’s purse strings: lawmakers or the court system. … Overall, the state has been sued more than a dozen times because of cuts lawmakers made in recent years to curtail state spending and balance the budget.” A spokesman for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the groups suing the state over cuts, describes program cuts as “violating people’s rights” and says the state should raise revenue if it doesn’t want to be sued. [Seattle Times] (& Bainbridge).
Tagged as:
labor unions,
public employment,
taxpayers,
Washington state
San Francisco’s public contracting requirements could drive both taxpayers and vendors batty: “[C]ity purchasing policies, if followed, would mean paying about $240 for getting a copy of a key that actually cost a worker $1.35 to get done at a hardware store on his break,” according to one whistleblowing employee. [SF Chronicle via Matt Welch]
Tagged as:
contracts,
San Francisco,
taxpayers
“The city of Lodi ended a long legal battle over groundwater contamination earlier this month,” accepting $6.3 million from insurers for local businesses. [Lodi News-Sentinel] We covered the convoluted litigation, in which the California city sued numerous local businesses, in reports here and here.
Tagged as:
California,
environment,
taxpayers
Vowing no longer to be Mister Nice City (assuming it ever qualified as such), Chicago is now willing to pay $50,000 to fight (successfully) a police-misconduct case it could have settled for $10,000:
Even though the city stands to lose money litigating every case under $100,000, a spokeswoman for the law department said that recently compiled figures showed the strategy seemed to be saving taxpayer money by dissuading lawyers from suing the police unless they are confident of victory.
(& welcome Coyote readers).
Tagged as:
Chicago,
police,
taxpayers
That includes $14 million in payouts to defense lawyers, many of whom have close ties to local politicians, and $25 million to claimants, a figure that “dwarfs what area municipalities and larger cities including Camden and Trenton have paid, and nearly equals payouts in Newark, where the population is eight times larger than Atlantic City.” The casino town’s population is 35,000. [Press of Atlantic City]
Tagged as:
New Jersey,
taxpayers
I’ve got a post up at Cato at Liberty on the Freddie-Mac-versus-IRS litigation that Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Weil calls the “stupidest lawsuit ever.”
P.S. And welcome Mickey Kaus readers (”Stupidest lawsuit ever? Tough category”).
Tagged as:
taxes,
taxpayers
A lawyer in St. John’s, Newfoundland, “says government could be held accountable for introducing moose to the province in 1912.” The giant herbivores sometimes cause serious car crashes. [Canadian Press via Karlsgodt]
Tagged as:
animals,
Canada,
taxpayers
“From 2007 to 2009, the District [of Columbia] paid more than $50 million in legal settlements, according to a database of city records obtained by The Washington Post. In that period, Montgomery County – which has 972,000 residents vs. the District’s 599,000 – paid $8.5 million in settlements. … ‘There are more lawyers per capita in this city than any other city in the world,’ [District attorney general Peter] Nickles said. ‘And what do lawyers like to do?’” [Washington Post; sidebar charts]
Tagged as:
taxpayers,
Washington D.C.
Attorney General Rob McKenna of Washington discusses the need to roll back a combination of legislation and judicially created doctrine that leaves the state uniquely exposed to liability lawsuits. “Calls to attorneys general offices in other states reveal we pay much more than states with similar-sized populations: eight times more than Tennessee, five times more than Arizona and at least three times more than Massachusetts. These disparities date back at least 15 years.” [Seattle Times; my 2005 take]
Tagged as:
taxpayers,
Washington state
