Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_02-cv-02488/USCOURTS-caed-2_02-cv-02488-19/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

---

STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 1

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

 

LAW OFFICE OF STEWART KATZ

STEWART KATZ, State Bar #127425 

JOSEPH D. ELFORD, State Bar #189934 

555 University Avenue, Suite 270 

Sacramento, California 95825 

Telephone: (916) 444-5678 

Attorneys for Plaintiffs 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

Estate of JAKE SUMMERS, deceased, by and 

through his mother DENISE HOFF (conservatee, by 

and through her guardian ad litem Judy Carver), as 

successor in interest; and DENISE HOFF, 

Individually, 

 

 Plaintiffs, 

 vs. 

COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO; Sacramento County 

Sheriff’s Department Sheriff LOU BLANAS; 

Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department Captain, 

JIM COOPER,

 Defendants, 

_______________________________________/ 

No. CIV S-02-2488 FCD JFM 

(Consolidated Action) 

STIPULATION OF 

PARTIES REQUESTING 

COURT APPROVAL OF 

SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS; ORDER 

 

 PURSUANT TO LOCAL RULE 17-202, the parties to the above-referenced action 

by and through their undersigned attorneys hereby stipulate and respectfully request the 

Court to approve the settlement of the claims of Denise Hoff, who is presently under a 

conservatorship as a result of mental illness/incapacity in this matter, on the reasons set 

forth below. 

 /// 

/// 

/// 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 1 of 8
STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 2

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

BASIS FOR APPROVAL OF PROPOSED SETTLEMENT 

OR COMPROMISE OF AN INCOMPETENT’S CLAIM 

 The above referenced case involves Plaintiff DENISE HOFF who is the mother of 

the decedent JAKE SUMMERS. 

 The above-referenced matter was part of a consolidated civil rights action brought 

under 42 U.S.C. section 1983, with supplemental state law claims, on behalf of three 

decedents who committed suicide at the Sacramento County Main Jail. The consolidated 

civil rights action was brought against County of Sacramento Defendants and Regents of 

the University of California employee Defendants. In the consolidated action, Plaintiffs 

claimed that the various municipal actors/Defendants caused the wrongful deaths of the 

decedents because Defendants were deliberately indifferent to the needs of the three 

inmates. Defendants denied any liability or wrongdoing. 

 The actions proceeded through discovery and law and motion. Following Motions 

for Summary Judgment and/or Adjudication by the Defendants, this Court issued an Order, 

on or about December 13, 2005, dismissing the University of California (Jail Psychiatric 

Services) employee Defendants’ action. Accordingly, that action only proceeded against 

County of Sacramento Defendants. 

 After the Summary Judgment Order, the parties continued trial preparation and 

concluded discovery. The cases were to be tried separately. ARAMBULA was scheduled to 

be the first of the cases to go to trial. On the eve of the ARAMBULA trial and on the eve 

of the SUMMERS pretrial conference, following extensive negotiations by the parties and 

a Court ordered Settlement Conference, the parties settled globally all of the matters in the 

consolidated action. 

 This Motion seeks approval of the Settlement as it applies to the SUMMERS 

matter. 

1. Incompetent’s name: DENISE HOFF 

2. Age/Sex of Incompetent: DENISE HOFF is a 53 year-old female 

3. Causes of Action: The causes of action to be settled in this case on behalf of 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 2 of 8
STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 3

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

Ms. HOFF involve federal law claims alleged against the COUNTY OF SACRAMENTO 

and former jail commander JAMES COOPER and Sheriff LOU BLANAS in their official 

capacities. Specifically, following the Summary Judgment Order, the claims that remained 

were Plaintiff’s claim under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 for inadequate staffing and cell check 

policies and practices. 

4. Factual Basis: 

The Court is well acquainted with the facts of this case from the summary judgment 

motions in this case, the other pretrial motions, and the in limine motions. 

 SUMMERS was a pretrial detainee at the Sacramento County Main Jail for a strong 

arm robbery which consisted of stealing a tip jar from a Jamba Juice. Upon his booking at 

the jail, SUMMERS did not impart the custody, medical or mental health staff with 

information that would have put them on any heightened notice regarding his risk of 

suicide. Although SUMMERS was addicted to heroin, he gave indications that he was no 

longer suffering from the effects of withdrawal from the drug. 

 In the late morning of February 8, 2002, SUMMERS was returned to his cell 

following a court appearance. SUMMERS did not have a cellmate. Summers was then 

found dead by an inmate worker at 5:45 p.m. SUMMERS had written a suicide note on the 

cell’s wall before hanging himself. 

 Plaintiff alleges that after the court appearance there were no cell checks performed 

and that a single deputy, Ross Kingsley, was working the housing unit for the relevant time 

period. Furthermore, Plaintiff alleges that Deputy Kingsley recorded that cell checks were 

performed in the official log book but that those checks were never performed (an improper 

practice Plaintiff claims is called “pencil-whipping”). Plaintiff thus alleges that Defendants 

were responsible for SUMMERS’ suicide and that the policy at the time permitted only a 

single officer to be working a housing unit and that this occurred with some frequency as a 

result of understaffing. 

 The Defendants deny that Plaintiff’s allegations are true. In the investigation 

following the suicide, Deputy Kingsley explained that the recorded cell checks were made 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 3 of 8
STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 4

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

by observing mass movement of prisoners within the housing unit. Defendants contend 

that policy required cell checks every hour and that when a deputy, like Kingsley, found 

himself alone on the unit, it is the housing deputy’s obligation to call other units to send a 

deputy to either perform the cell checks or cover the control booth so the solo officer can 

make the cell checks. Kingsley was never disciplined for failing to see that cell checks 

were performed. Kingsley was not disciplined for his log entries. Defendants contend that 

although the policy called for at least two deputies to be assigned to every housing unit, 

there were occasions when only one deputy was available. The evidence is disputed as to 

the frequency with which housing units were staffed with only one deputy. 

5. Extent of Injuries: The Plaintiff’s injuries in this action are emotional injuries 

resulting from the loss of the love of her son. 

6. Compromise determination: As noted above, the parties reached a settlement 

globally in the consolidated civil rights action following extensive negotiations and a Court 

ordered Settlement Conference. A global settlement was reached because all the Plaintiffs 

sought both closure and to avoid the uncertainties of trial (as to both liability and damages), 

and the defendants had greater incentive to settle all three rather than settle one case they 

were involved in and still go to trial on the related claims. The actions and claims were 

vigorously contested by the Defendants. However, at least part of their motivation to settle 

globally was the recognition of the costs of that defense and the potential costs of an 

attorney fee award should at least one of the Plaintiffs prevail. 

 While Plaintiff can proffer several strong points in the SUMMERS case, 

particularly regarding the false log entries of Kingsley and the alleged evidence of 

understaffing, there were also a number of issues and possible outcomes which strongly 

encouraged Plaintiff to opt for the certainty of settlement. The causal link between the 

suicide and any malfeasance was a major issue of contention. From the Plaintiff’s 

perspective, this was made more difficult to prove as a result of the Court finding the 

suicide prevention policies at the time constitutionally acceptable. This would have 

required a difficult, or at least linguistically challenging, parsing of the cell check policies 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 4 of 8
STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 5

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

from the suicide prevention polices where the central issue would have been the effect of 

those policies on the failure to prevent the SUMMERS suicide. 

 Defendants’ expert, Lindsay Hayes, a nationally renowned expert in suicide 

prevention in correctional institutions, saw no causal connection between the cell check 

policy, practices or procedures and the SUMMERS’ suicide. Since ligature strangulation 

can produce death within approximately 5 minutes, the Plaintiff faced a difficult hurdle to 

connect the failure to conduct hourly cell checks to the suicide. Plaintiff’s case could well 

have hinged upon the effectiveness of the cross examination at trial of an experienced 

professional witness. Additionally, the medical testimony could well have led a rational 

fact finder to the conclusion that a significant portion of the alleged false cell check reports 

were post death and therefore irrelevant. 

 The consolidated civil rights action resolved globally for a total current value of 

$1,000,000.00 with the understanding that HOFF would receive $100,000.00. The 

allocation of the global settlement is broken down as follows: $250,000.00 current value to 

be paid to the Arambula Plaintiffs, $150,000.00 to the Abdollahi Plaintiff, $100,000.00 to 

the SUMMERS Plaintiff, and $500,000.00 in fees/costs. These figures were arrived at by 

weighing the relative strengths of the cases in terms of liability and damages. These figures 

were further broken down so that the County of Sacramento agreed to pay $450,000.00 

which included: the SUMMERS’ settlement of $100,000.00; $100,000.00 of the Abdollahi 

settlement; and $250,000.00 in fees/costs. The University of California Regents agreed to 

pay $550,000.00: $75,000.00 towards Abdollahi (with $50,000.00 allocated to Sina 

Abdollahi and $25,000.00 in fees/costs) and $475,000.00 toward settlement of Arambula 

($50,000 to be paid jointly to the parents of Arambula, $100,000 toward the purchase of 

annuities for each of the Arambula minor children, Andrew and Elias Arambula, and 

$225,000.00 in fees/costs). 

 HOFF may be the Plaintiff who benefited the most from the consolidated 

resolution. All parties acknowledged that SUMMERS would be the most difficult to prove 

at trial. The parties were further apart in their evaluation of the settlement value of the 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 5 of 8
STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 6

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

SUMMERS case than any of the others. Standing alone, the Defendants appear to have 

considered SUMMERS worth no more than a figure in the low five-figure range. 

 Because of the different administrative requirements of the varying Defendants, the 

action settled globally but there is no single settlement agreement signed by all parties. A 

copy of the settlement and release as to the SUMMERS claims is attached as Exhibit 1. 

The attached Settlement Agreement and Release is for both the SUMMERS and 

ABDOLLAHI claims against the County of Sacramento. 

A. Settlement Terms. 

The guardian ad litem intends to use the $100,000.00 to establish a special needs 

trust for Ms. HOFF with her adult daughter, Tanya Summers, as the party with the 

authority to disburse the funds. This has been discussed with and approved by Ms. HOFF 

at times when she was off of a conservatorship (which was after the general terms were 

agreed to but before paperwork was executed.). She recognizes that she recurrently has 

medication issues/lapses which have lead to numerous conservatorships. Attorney Judy 

Carver has been the guardian ad litem in this matter, under appointment by the Sacramento 

Superior Court prior to the action being filed. 

 This settlement has been approved by the Sacramento Superior Court. A copy of 

that order has been attached as Exhibit 2. 

B. Attorney’s Fees and Costs. 

 Plaintiffs' attorney, Stewart Katz, was hired by Plaintiffs through their guardian ad 

litem. Plaintiffs’ attorney and associates were retained prior to filing of this action and 

have handled this case throughout these proceedings. As noted above, this matter was part 

of a consolidated civil rights action dealing with the Jail Suicides at the Sacramento County 

Main Jail. Since these matters were consolidated from the onset it is difficult if not 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 6 of 8
STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 7

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

impossible (with the exception of filing fees and individual decedent records) to discern 

which costs and fees applied to each of the matters. Additionally, as the Court has 

recognized by the consolidation order, the discovery in this case regularly applied to all of 

the matters. Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ counsel has attached as Exhibit 3 the costs associated 

with the consolidated civil rights action. Those costs equal $ 90,603.00. 

 In addition to the costs, counsel’s office spent over 2,900 hours prosecuting the civil 

rights action. Based on hourly rates of $350.00 (2156 hours) for Stewart Katz, $375.00 

(103 hours) for Joseph Elford, $250.00 (297 hours) for Costa Kerestenzis, $150.00 (380 

hours) for Elizabeth Dankof, plus contracted paralegals paid $3,120.00, the attorney’s fees 

for the consolidated civil rights action totaled $927,595.00. 

 The Defendants have not undertaken any investigation or discovery regarding the 

claim for attorney’s fees or Plaintiffs’ costs incurred in prosecuting the cases. Defense 

counsel agree that Plaintiffs’ attorneys devoted substantial portions of the past four years 

prosecuting the cases and expended substantial sums in costs for depositions, expert 

witnesses and out-of-state travel. The Defendants do no stipulate that the hourly rates are 

appropriate but agree that the effort expended, the nature of the experience displayed, the 

costs expended and risked, and the result achieved make the attorney’s fees contemplated 

by this settlement reasonable and appropriate. 

 Finally, Plaintiffs’ counsel notes that the amount of the settlement for fees and costs 

is appropriate as it has been approved by the guardian ad litem and the Superior Court and 

given the risk taken by Plaintiffs’ counsel to prosecute this matter. The consolidated civil 

rights action monopolized counsel’s office, a small office usually staffed only by Stewart 

Katz and a single associate, for the last four years in terms of resources and time. Counsel 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 7 of 8
STIPULATION OF PARTIES REQUESTING COURT APPROVAL OF SETTLEMENT OF 

CLAIMS - ORDER 8

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

took the matters on a contingency basis and advanced all fees and costs and thus went 

unpaid during the prosecution of this action. 

 

Dated: November 30, 2007 LAW OFFICE OF STEWART KATZ 

 _____/s/ Stewart Katz___________________ 

 STEWART KATZ, 

 Attorney for Plaintiff 

Dated: November 30, 2007 LONGYEAR, O’DEA & LAVRA LLP 

_____/s/ D. Van Longyear______________ 

 D. VAN LONGYEAR 

 Attorney for Defendants 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: December 7, 2007 

Case 2:02-cv-02488-FCD-JFM Document 287 Filed 12/07/07 Page 8 of 8