Justices Say Both Cities Must Fetch the Money

You might say the justices’ bark was worse than their bite.

That is just about the only bad pun a 4th District Court of Appeal decision last week didn’t include in ruling how much each of two cities should pay into a settlement to a crime victim accidentally bitten by a police dog.

Just split the $250,000 settlement, Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr. wrote, joined by Justices Edward J. Wallin and William F. Rylaarsdam. But Crosby couldn’t resist departing from the usual arcane legal language to have a little pun with this.

He sank his fangs in the cities for not thinking of this solution before, to avoid a “needless municipal dogfight and rabid mutilation of public resources.” The argument presented by one city, Huntington Beach, was a “howler.” The reasoning of the other, Westminster, at one point “was simply barking up the wrong judicial tree.”

The legal claim was “a unique puppy in the field [but] it hardly justified the boarding costs.”

The wording was almost as unusual as the case that inspired it.

On March 12, 1991, Huntington Beach police officers responded to a report of an armed robbery at a local restaurant. Officers in nearby Westminster and Fountain Valley also heard the call and joined them at the scene.

Two suspects were collared, but a Huntington Beach sergeant requested a police dog to sniff around for other possible culprits. Huntington Beach’s canine unit wasn’t available, so Westminster police offered theirs, Xello, already at the scene.

There was some confusion over whether the area had been secured, and Xello, deployed without a leash, ran past several police officers and the handcuffed suspects and promptly attacked a sobbing robbery victim, biting her severely, according to court papers.

She sued both cities, and in April 1993, the cities settled her claim for $250,000, with the agreement holding both municipalities “jointly liable.”

But they went on to argue indemnity issues in a three-day trial before a judge, who decided Huntington Beach should bear the full cost because a city that requests assistance should be ready to assume the financial risks.

Huntington Beach appealed--and both ended up in the legal doghouse.

“Each party shall bear its own costs,” Crosby concluded.