Tuesday, July 28, 2015

City still shelling out hundreds of millions in judgments

From AM-NY:

Legal payouts by New York City are forecast to spike 17.5 percent by the 2018-19 fiscal year, even as Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration has pumped millions of dollars into a new war on so-called frivolous litigation.

By then, taxpayers could be on the hook for $817 million in judgments and claims, up from $695 million in 2014-15, according to City Council budget documents. About 28,500 claims are filed against the city every year.

The projection is "disturbing" said Carol Kellermann, president of the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission.

"Their explanations for why it's going up are counterintuitive to what they say about doing better management," she said.

A de Blasio spokeswoman, Amy Spitalnick, said the administration is being cautious -- projecting an increase of about 4 percent a year based on historical trends -- because of litigation fights it could lose.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

1/2 a billion dollars is put aside every year for lawsuits against the NYPD. At some point in time the officer at fault should be paying for a percentage of the suit.

Anonymous said...

Love the analogy in the AM piece to feeding a stray cat. Makes perfect sense.

Anonymous said...

This is our mayor's plan to fight income inequality, raiding a treasury is nothing new for the radical set

Anonymous said...

1/2 a billion dollars is put aside every year for lawsuits against the NYPD. At some point in time the officer at fault should be paying for a percentage of the suit.
----------- --------------- ------------------
Many times the officer is found to be not at fault, and is indemnified and represented by the corporation council. Regardless, the city usually decides to settle, through no fault of the officer, just to avoid a lengthy and costly civil proceeding.

Anonymous said...

Stop crying, its free money for those less fortunate with good lawyer's
Just Jack property tax and its a wash!!

Anonymous said...

all settlements should come out of the PBA and from the officers pension fund.