County Settles Lawsuit With Jones

Local attorney gets $22,500 after being arrested by Ojai Police Chief Bruce Norris at public forum in 2006

Photo by Rob Clement

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By Daryl Kelley
Local attorney Cathy Elliott Jones has settled the $10-million civil rights claim she filed against the Ojai Police Department after the police chief pulled her from a candidates’ forum he said she was disrupting and arrested her in October 2006.
“A settlement was reached with her for $22,500 simply for economic reasons,” said Alan Wisotsky, whose Oxnard firm represents the county Sheriff’s Department, which provides police protection in Ojai. “For our firm to get involved, the costs would have been considerably greater.”
Wisotsky said he doubted that Jones could have won her civil case, “but the costs far outweighed the nuisance value settlement.”
He said the case was essentially settled through Jones’ negotiations with the county risk-management department, instead of by county lawyers.
Jones’ case against the city and county and several other defendants, including forum hosts, the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Ojai Valley News, was dismissed by a Superior Court judge because of the settlement, according to a court record filed last week.
Jones refused comment this week.
But in her civil rights claim, she alleged that she was illegally and forcibly seized and unlawfully arrested by Ojai Police Chief Bruce Norris after refusing to sit down and stop talking during the Oct. 16, 2006 candidates’ forum.
When Jones mistakenly thought that her written question to candidates was being misread, she objected and refused to stop talking when confronted by Norris. The police chief then pulled her outside of Chaparral Auditorium, where she was handcuffed and arrested for allegedly interfering with a public meeting and resisting a peace officer.
Jones, who was recovering from an appendectomy, was taken to Ventura County Medical Center for examination, but was soon released. Later, her attorney said she had been bruised and traumatized by the incident, her reputation tarnished, and her right to speak at a public forum denied.
County prosecutors refused to file criminal charges against Jones, and she filed a legal claim against the city of Ojai in March of last year. Her lawsuit against eight defendants was filed in September. Defendants were never served with the suit, but legally she had one year to serve them, Wisotsky said.
Wisotsky said that prosecutors declined to file criminal charges because Jones had been arrested for disrupting a public meeting, but that the candidates’ forum was not legally a public meeting, but instead a campaign event and the same rules may not apply.
“This was one of those technicalities in the criminal system and she probably could have been arrested (and prosecuted) under the Election Code,” Wisotsky said, “but she wasn’t.”
Instead, prosecutors declined to file that charge and county officials declined to fight the lawsuit once a low settlement offer was made, he said.
“If it was a serious policy issue and not a fracas in the sleepy town of Ojai, we would have gone forward,” the county lawyer said. “The fact is Capt. Norris could establish that he had probable cause (to think a crime was being committed.) We certainly had plenty of issues to raise. But at $22,500 the economics just didn’t make sense.”
Wisotsky said he’d like to try all cases he thinks the Sheriff’s Department can win, and that for decades the county did, but stopped because of costs. Still, the number of cases against deputies has dropped dramatically because of the county’s position to fight most cases, he said.
When Jones filed her legal claim last year, her attorney, Neal Safran, said Norris used excessive force to apprehend and detain her without any justifiable reason.
“She was bruised badly and suffered emotional stress, humiliation and embarrassment which affected her reputation in the community,” said Safran.” “We are possibly claiming there was a deprivation of her rights of freedom of speech.”
According to the claim, Norris falsely accused Jones of being “loaded on Vicodin” which started a rumor that spread through the community. She also incurred legal fees and out-of-pocket expense for medical treatment.
The claim stated that 12 witnesses saw Jones roughly escorted out of the forum and accosted.
It also said that Jones suspected that she had been singled out and targeted for harassment by Norris who “harbors personal animosity toward her.” Since the event, the claim said that she had been followed, kept under surveillance by police officers, and had been harassed both at home and in public.
With the settlement, the case is now over, at least as it pertains to the county and the city, Wisotsky said. But since a judge dismissed it without prejudice it could be refiled against the other defendants within two years of the incident, he said.
“But I think, effectively, this case is over,” he said.