Today, I’m reminded of that old-timey cop film/TV show called The Naked City, which famously ended the film and each episode with the line, "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them." That’s more or less the context for today’s PopTort. There have been millions of notable civil justice cases brought over the years. This is one of them.
Before we get into the case, let’s talk briefly about the importance of the contingency fee system (and for more on that, see this study from Center for Justice & Democracy.). This unique fee system provides those with injury or death cases, regardless of their financial means, with access to an attorney. The attorney takes a case without charging any money up front and is paid as a percentage of any successful judgement or settlement – the standard percentage being one-third.
Many state laws unfairly and arbitrarily limit these fees, which make it impossible for attorneys to take certain cases. But it is also true that sometimes, trial lawyers voluntarily reduce their fees in order to help a client obtain an better settlement. That’s according to research from Professor Herbert Kritzer, the leading academic on contingent fee representation. His work can be found in Seven Dogged Myths Concerning Contingency Fees.
For injured victims, a better settlement doesn’t always mean more money even though a smaller monetary settlement means less money for both them and their attorney. Americans often sue for reasons that have little to do with money. Many sue primarily to hold a wrongdoer accountable, forcing them to make changes to their dangerous product or unsafe practice so others don’t have to suffer. That is also why many attorneys take such important cases - to make a difference. Many examples of such cases can be found LIFESAVERS 2021, which documents and explains how lawsuits and the tort system can lead to important changes that protect us all from dangerous or illegal practices.
One area where lawsuits can be particularly important is when it comes to exposing and hopefully stopping law enforcement practices like excessive force and brutality. One such case caught our eye recently. It concerns the settlement agreed to by the family of 38-year-old Jacob Bauer, whose 2018 death at the hands of Pleasanton California law enforcement involved horrendous instances of excessive force, brutality and misconduct.
Jacob was an individual who had been sliding into severe mental illness to such an extent that his worried parents, John and Rose Bauer, took the extraordinary step of alerting local police about it – four times. Their fear was that “their son would be hurt or killed if he ever came in contact with officers. They pointed out two other mentally ill men had been killed by Pleasanton police officers in the previous two years.”
Three days after the Bauers last met with police, who told them “not to worry,” police officers killed Jacob. This occurred after an incident at a grocery store where Jacob was acting erratically. “[O]fficers handcuffed him, took him to the ground, tased him, punched him, and piled on top of him while he laid in the prone position.” He was “also restrained in a full-body wrap with a spit mask and at one point had eight officers leaning on him.” When he screamed he couldn’t breathe, the officers essentially mocked him. Then he died.
The Bauers sued. John Bauer also began “going to City Council meetings to speak about de-escalation training for officials who interact with the mentally ill,” according to one of attorneys, Gary Gwilliam. So when Pleasanton agreed to settle the case for $5.9 million, it may be no surprise that compensation was not all the Bauers requested. Said attorney Gwilliam, “What the Bauers want is to try and make sure that this doesn’t happen again, and that their son’s life will have some meaning, that it wasn't in vain. So in the settlement agreement, the Bauer’s demanded simply that the police finally listen to them.”
According to the settlement, the virtual “listening session” must be arranged within 30 days of the settlement being signed by all parties. The Bauers will have 10 to 20 minutes to explain what they would like to see happen when Pleasanton police officers respond to a mental health crisis. Police officials will then have a chance to talk about what has changed in the department since their son's death.
“Jacob lost his life over a few broken bottles at a grocery store," Rose Bauer said in a statement. "I hope this settlement creates real changes to stop police from using excessive force against the mentally ill.”
Notably, attorney, Gwilliam, said that “he was confident they could have gotten more in the settlement but that the Bauer family preferred to secure the meeting with police.
“I want everyone to remember that his death did not happen in vain, and maybe the terrible death and the terrible grief this has caused his parents might save someone else’s life someday,” Gwilliam said in an interview Monday.”
Maybe now they’ll listen.