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Youngstown settled two lawsuits
YOUNGSTOWN
The city is paying $150,000 to its insurance company to settle two lawsuits — one with a longtime police officer and the other with a motorcyclist injured when he hit a large pothole — and for ongoing work to resolve a third case.
In the first settlement, police Detective Donald Scott, an officer for more than 20 years, sued the city in federal court in December 2012 contending he was transferred, harassed and defamed by then-Police Chief Rod Foley and city Prosecutor Dana Lantz.
After Scott helped draft a nonpartisan petition for a proposed ballot issue to elect the city police chief, rather than having the mayor appoint the chief, Scott alleges Foley told him on July 6, 2012, that he might solve more robberies if he just did his job, instead of engaging in petitioning.
Scott also alleged he was transferred from his usual duties as a detective and assigned to the police department’s emergency-call center after Lantz wrote a letter Sept. 4, 2012, to Foley and other city officials that accused Scott of “attempting to thwart and sabotage prosecutions.”
City Law Director Martin Hume said Tuesday that Scott was returned to the detective bureau and received $35,000 as part of the settlement.
“We denied all of the [accusations] and avoided future litigation” with the settlement, he said. “The matter was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties.”
With legal fees, the cost of the case was $64,473.50.
The city’s board of control was authorized by city council last week to pay the $50,000 deductible to HCC Public Risk Claim Service, the city’s insurance company.
Council also agreed to have the board of control pay $50,000 to HCC for the deductible on a lawsuit filed in July 2013 by Robert Soich of Shirley Road in Youngstown. The settlement amount with Soich was $50,000, Hume said.
In that lawsuit, Soich’s attorney wrote that his client was driving July 23, 2011, on Cooper Road when he “hit a large pothole and was violently thrown from his motorcycle receiving bodily injury resulting in pain, suffering and emotional distress.”
The lawsuit also contends the city knew about the pothole and “negligently failed to take reasonable efforts to maintain the subject street in a reasonably safe condition.”
The final $50,000 payment to HCC is for an ongoing federal lawsuit filed by Desiree Johnson and Dorthea Weston, both of Youngstown, who contend police violated their civil rights during a traffic stop. Legal fees have already exceeded $50,000 in this unresolved case, and the city’s board of control will pay the deductible on this matter, Hume said.
The city paid $50,000 in May to HCC to settle a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed in 2011 by Johnson related to police misconduct. That case was settled for $70,000.
Johnson sued the city saying police used “excessive and unreasonable force and searched and seized” her then-12-year-old son at gunpoint in 2009 “without probable cause or justification.”
The payment also was contingent on approval from the Mahoning County Probate Court. Judge Robert N. Rusu Jr. approved the settlement Aug. 6.