Shockingly, when the government gives away billions of dollars to people who fill out a form, fraudsters quickly figure out how to collect billions of dollars by filling out a form.
If this revelation has knocked you off your chair, you must be an elected official in California. Anyone else would have seen it coming, or would have heeded the warnings from people who did.
In 2019 Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 218, reckless legislation authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who is currently president of the politically powerful California Federation of Labor. In her statement to the legislature in support of the bill, Gonzalez said AB 218 “would expand access to justice for victims of childhood sexual assault by removing the arbitrary time limits upon victims to pursue a case.”
In opposition, the California Civil Liberties Advocacy organization responded that “extending the statute of limitations in civil suits is in more in the interests of the plaintiffs’ lawyer industry than that of the abuse survivors.”
The Assembly’s analysis of the bill noted that it was opposed by “public and private school officials, insurance associations, and joint powers associations,” because of concerns that “it is very difficult to defend against old claims when records and witnesses may be unavailable, insurance may no longer be available, and the cost of defending these actions could be astronomical and could prevent the impacted entities from being able to support their main work.”
Before AB 218 was signed, California law required that civil actions for childhood sexual assault must be brought within eight years of the age of majority or within three years of the date the plaintiff discovered or reasonably should have discovered that the psychological injury was caused by the sexual assault. AB 218 changed term “assault” to “abuse,” broadened the definition, extended the statute of limitations by 14 years, allowed three years to revive old claims and limited an exemption for government entities.
It bears repeating that AB 218 pertains to civil actions, not criminal prosecutions. There’s no money in criminal prosecutions.
But lawyers suing a public entity such as a school district or, to cite another example, the County of Los Angeles, have access to tax dollars that extend beyond the current year’s budget out to the horizon, across a sea of borrowed money. The payouts are limited only by the appetite of bond buyers for interest payments guaranteed by taxpayers, so, unlimited.
On October 18, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors announced a settlement with another 400 plaintiffs who say they were victims of childhood sexual abuse by county workers. This latest settlement totals $828 million. It’s on top of the previously approved $4 billion settlement with roughly 11,000 plaintiffs. The claims of abuse date back as far as 1959.
The county has already implemented budget cuts to help make the payments on the debt it is incurring to pay for the record-shattering settlement.
Now here’s the shocking part, if you’re a California elected official who didn’t see this coming. There are allegations of fraud.
The Los Angeles Times reported that a law firm representing nearly one-fourth of the 11,000 claimants in the $4 billion settlement paid people to sue the county, using middlemen to solicit clients outside social services offices and other places where it was easy to find people who would fill out a form at a lawyer’s office in exchange for a cash payment of $100 or even $20.
The fraud allegations are serious enough that the Board of Supervisors is implementing strict new requirements for every plaintiff to “make a substantiated showing before an independent allocator, who may require additional proof of claims.”
Claims that are determined to be fraudulent will be removed from the settlement and the plaintiff can fight it out in court, or the county may give that claimant $50,000 to end the matter.
The L.A. Times reported that “any plaintiff who wants to skip that vetting process can take $150,000 in a lump sum at the start of next year.”
Real victims seeking fair compensation will be treated like fraudsters, while fraudsters have an easy path to payouts without proof. The lawyers get a cut of up to 45%.
Why is this even legal?
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