Honolulu Wasted A Lot Of Public Money To Fight Homeless Lawsuit
Destroying personal property belonging to homeless people was heartless. But the cost to the taxpayers could be outrageous.
The homeless sweeps that Mayor Kirk Caldwell鈥檚 office argues have been such a shining success have been controversial and expensive from the start. But they may get a whole lot more costly, if a federal judge sides with attorneys representing the homeless plaintiffs.
And the important thing to know is this: It didn鈥檛 have to turn out this way.
The potential drain on the public treasury stems from a lawsuit filed in September 2015 on behalf of 15 homeless individuals. The federal class-action suit alleged that the City and County of Honolulu was illegally destroying property seized from homeless people who were being rousted from public spaces under the stored property and sidewalk nuisance ordinances.
That suit resulted in the city stopping the property disposal and then entering a court-sanctioned agreement governing how that property is to be handled. Months later, the city agreed to settle the matter altogether by paying the plaintiffs $48,500 in damages.
Troubling enough, but it doesn’t end there. As has so often been the case in the city鈥檚 approach to homelessness, there鈥檚 more to the story.
For starters, the city has racked up $150,000 in billings so far with the law firm McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon that has represented Honolulu in this matter.
And now the attorneys representing the plaintiffs are seeking $622,500 in legal fees and reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses. The bulk of that 鈥斅$382,000 鈥 is for fees for the law firm of Alston Hunt Floyd and Ing, while $219,000 would go to the ACLU of Hawaii.
Attorneys for both Alston Hunt and the ACLU say their charges were discounted by 20 percent.
The city could have simply conceded that the modest personal belongings its workers were destroying might represent all the worldly possessions a homeless person owns.
Why are the legal fees so high to begin with? In part, because of costly delays caused by the city, including an expensive discovery process and extended mediation prior to the $48,500 settlement.
Because the settlement, already preliminarily approved by U.S. District Court Judge Helen Gillmor, allows the plaintiffs to recover attorney fees and out-of-pocket expenses, that all but guarantees the city will write a big check, covered by your tax dollars, though Donna Leong, the city鈥檚 chief attorney, said the legal fees are 鈥渘ot reasonable鈥 and will be challenged.
If Gilmor approves the fees, though, the total bill for the matter would be at least $821,000. And it doesn鈥檛 stop there. The city is also on the hook for required advertising to publicize the terms of the class action settlement and additional fees for the private firm representing the city through the conclusion of the matter, both of which could push the total even higher.
Now we could all grouse about the cost of legal representation. As has been said many times, the lawyers always win, and there鈥檚 a certain amount of truth to that, especially in a matter such as this.
But the city could have resolved this matter quickly by simply conceding that while the modest personal belongings its workers were destroying might not mean much to the city, in some cases they might represent all the worldly possessions a homeless person owns. That concession might have guided it more quickly toward a humane resolution and the reasonable agreement it ultimately reached anyway.
In the realm of federal class action lawsuits, arrogance聽and foot dragging often aren鈥檛 cheap.
While the city may have learned an expensive lesson here, taxpayers and the homeless individuals who lost their belongings are the ones who will ultimately pay the price. That should weigh on the minds of every city administrator involved in this matter — and serve as a reminder in legal actions going forward that the resources they manage are entrusted to them by Honolulu taxpayers.
