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BY JOE CARLSON
jcarlson@nwitimes.com
219.662.5339 | Tuesday, October 17, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
East Chicago has spent at least $1.5 million in the past year defending itself from wrongful termination lawsuits from about two dozen city workers who were fired after Mayor George Pabey took office in 2005.
City Attorney Carmen Fernandez defended the spending as necessary, while Councilman Anthony Copeland said Pabey's officials could have saved money by settling the lawsuits.
"If you look at a lot of these cases, they're meritless," Fernandez said. "Even if its cheaper, it would be illegal to give someone some money when they don't have a claim. ... You have to take a stand on some of these types of cases."
Copeland, who intends to run against Pabey in the 2007 mayoral primary, said Pabey's attorneys have settled several termination lawsuits that they inherited last year from former Mayor Robert Pastrick's administration. Those cases settled for about $30,000 apiece, he said.
"These costs are going to continue to skyrocket," Copeland said. "Until we put a fair and equitable system in place, where people can see why they were laid off, we're going to continue down this road."
Pabey fired about 68 city workers in his first few months in office, claiming the cuts were intended to reduce the budget. Twenty-one of those people have sued the city, saying they were fired because of their political loyalty to Pastrick.
Highland attorney Anthony DeBonis, who was employed as city lawyer under Pastrick, is representing most of the people who have sued. Although $1.5 million already has been spent, the cases are still in the pretrial discovery phases.
At least $1.1 million was paid out in the first six months of this year to the large Chicago firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, bills reviewed by The Times show.
The same firm received another $432,000 this year for various legal matters, including defending a lawsuit from Lake County Transfer Inc., handling employee arbitration and examining city policies.
The attorneys billed between $220 and $580 an hour. Fernandez said the overall average attorney fee was about $280 an hour, which she called "very reasonable."
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