Editorial: Bite taken out of taxpayer wallets

Friday, Feb. 27, 1998 | 10:33 a.m.

ANY lawyer will tell you that taking a case to trial is a gamble.

Jurors can return verdicts that no one ever anticipated and judges can throw out key pieces of evidence. Quite simply, there are no guarantees in a courtroom.

All of these factors also apply when discussing lawsuits filed against a state agency. Because taxpayer money is involved, the attorney general's office must be especially careful in taking a case to trial that involves potential monetary damages.

There have been a number of cases in the past year in which the attorney general's office had the opportunity to settle cases for relatively small sums of money but opted instead to take the cases to trial. The results were disastrous for taxpayers in the following three cases, documented by SUN reporter Cy Ryan:

* A U.S. District Court jury in Las Vegas last week awarded $330,000 to Bart Tanner, a warden with the state Department of Wildlife. Tanner claimed he was the victim of retaliation by co-workers. Before the trial, Tanner offered to settle the case for as little as $9,750.

Tanner's attorney, Richard Segerblom, says the $330,000 judgment will go up because his attorney's fees will be added and interest will accrue if there is an appeal. "We're prepared for anything and thank God, we didn't settle," a relieved Segerblom says.

* The state Board of Examiners last week agreed to pay $499,113 to the owner of a private investigation business in Reno after he was denied a license by the state Private Investigator's Board in September 1989.

In this case, Martin Stivers originally would have settled the case for less than $100,000, but the attorney general's office refused the offer. "This is a waste of taxpayer money," Terri Keyser-Cooper, the attorney for Stivers, says. A federal court jury in Reno in May 1996 awarded $150,000 to Stivers, and Keyser-Cooper was given $216,000 in attorney fees.

The state appealed, but lost this time also. Between the time of the award and the rejection of the appeal by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, more than $100,000 in interest was added to the initial award.

* Last year, the state ended up paying $525,000 to Julie Jimenez, whose 14-year-old son was sexually assaulted at a state treatment center in Reno. As in the other cases, Jimenez offered to settle. Jimenez would have taken $49,000 before the trial began.

But the state declined. Even after Jimenez won her judgment in District Court, she was willing to settle for $250,000. The state attorney general's office refused and the case was appealed to the state Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of Jimenez.

Sometimes the state must press forward and go to court because the case has merit. No one is suggesting the attorney general's office simply roll over and pay whatever settlement a plaintiff offers. If the state agency's case is clear and convincing, it should go to trial. But lately it's becoming apparent that better judgment is needed when deciding whether to take a case to trial.

In the case of the state Wildlife employee who sued, the attorney general's office recommended that the case be settled, but state Wildlife Director Willie Molini and two game wardens insisted on a trial. If there's any good that can come out of this case, maybe a state agency in the future will keep its pride in check when thinking about using taxpayer money to go to trial.

There are times when state agencies make mistakes, and the attorney general's office should settle by paying for damages that have been caused by the government. The attorney general's office should not be wearing rose-colored glasses when it looks at the merits of a case. If a case smells like a dead-bang loser, it's best to cut your losses as soon as possible and save taxpayer dollars.