A hawkish litigation strategy in Alameda County has led to costly courtroom battles that have stretched on for years, racking up millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees and incurring multimillion-dollar settlements for which taxpayers have footed the bill. There are many such expensive examples, according to numerous lawyers who’ve sued the county. In May 2023, for example, Alameda County’s lawyers sought a new trial for two sheriff’s deputies who were found to have illegally detained Aasylei Loggervale and her two daughters, who had fallen asleep in their car in Castro Valley in 2019. The officers were searching for two male suspects who had burgled cars in the area, but they detained the Loggervales and demanded the mother provide her ID. A jury awarded the Loggervale family $8. 25 million for their unlawful detention four years later, but the county’s attorney for the case, Kevin Gilbert, made a motion for a new trial, claiming senior U. S. district judge William Alsup had advocated for the plaintiffs, permitted incorrect statements on the record, and that the “totality of circumstances in the case is troubling and problematic.” But Alsup was having none of it. “I wish I could believe you. When I go through the list, you’ll see why I don’t trust almost anything you say,” Alsup said in a back-and-forth with Gilbert. The following appeal cost the county and its taxpayers an additional $3 million for a total settlement of $11. 26 million. According to the Loggervales’ lawyer, Joseph May, the initial settlement offer was approximately $750,000. In recent years, county-hired lawyers have pursued a similar litigation strategy in multiple cases, even when the outcome appeared to obviously disfavor the county’s case, according to lawyers who’ve sued the county. Cases that could have been settled quickly for a fraction of the ultimate cost have instead become years-long courtroom battles, driving millions of dollars in attorneys’ fees and million-dollar settlements with the plaintiffs, May and other attorneys said. Gilbert and the county’s legal team “took an extremely aggressive approach,” May said. “Later on, once the facts started becoming clear, (Gilbert) just kept doubling down.” Gilbert did not respond to a request for comment. In Alameda County, County Counsel Donna Ziegler and the Risk Management Unit decide how to respond to cases filed against the county, varying from alleged violations of labor laws to the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Fourth Amendment. With a case’s assigned lawyer, they face a choice: fight the allegation or settle. In case after case, plaintiffs’ attorneys interviewed for this story describe the county’s legal strategy as “sophomoric and unfortunately blind to obvious risk.” Inquiries to County Counsel Donna Ziegler and the Risk Management Unit did not receive a response. In another case, in 2015, Daniel Ridge, a morgue employee at Alameda Health System, was working seven days a week while the hospital sought to fill a vacant attendant role. The consequences of this demanding role caused Ridge’s mental health to suffer, his attorney, Lawrance Bohm, said. When he sought treatment for “work stress,” his doctor with Kaiser diagnosed him with generalized anxiety disorder, depression and PTSD, according to court documents. Ridge eventually went on medical leave to participate in an Intensive Outpatient Program. It was during this period in late 2015 that the health system fired Ridge for failure to show up for work, despite a doctor’s note excusing him in violation of California labor law. The mortician’s mental health deteriorated further; he became estranged from his family and was homeless as he pursued the lawsuit. Alameda County “could not have had Daniel Ridge in more of a leveraged position, being in litigation for eight years, homeless, disabled, financially destitute,” Bohm said. “And they couldn’t get this case resolved, mainly because they didn’t try. Instead, they took a ‘pounds for defense, pennies for resolution’ approach.” Bohm said he had offered to settle the lawsuit for $550,000 in 2018, but county counsel sought a jury trial. And in March 2025, a jury found the hospital system had violated California labor law by firing Ridge and ordered it to pay $2. 4 million in addition to $5 million to $7 million for attorneys fees that are still being accounted for, according to Bohm to Ridge’s family, as his lawyers had told the court he could not be located. The hospital system then appealed the jury’s verdict, stating, the “plaintiff’s allegations were not supported by fact” and that “Alameda Health System defended itself from litigation in this case because it was and is the right thing to do.” But doing the right thing, in Bohm’s opinion, requires accountability. The county’s defense team instead “dug in its heels” for five years and used odd interpretations of the law to avoid taking responsibility, he said. The county “lost this case on every issue, required a federal injunction to issue, and subjected taxpayers to over $1. 2 million in avoidable legal expenses, not including the money spent on the County’s private losing defense firm,” Bohm said. “The Board of Supervisors and citizens should be outraged at this overly litigious mishandling of a meritorious civil rights issue.” But there may be more to the county’s litigation strategy, according to UC Berkeley law professor and former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin. “There is a long-term strategy that many big entities, government and private, . “Sometimes it is worth paying lawyers more than it would cost us to settle a case to fight and deter future copycat litigation.” Last month, Alameda County settled a lawsuit with Lisamaria Martinez, a Union City resident who is blind and had sued Alameda County twice for failing to accommodate her disability as required by law. While Martinez’s first lawsuit against Alameda County was adjudicated within months of filing it in 2013, her second lawsuit took nearly six years to settle. Martinez had sought to establish a business name in 2019 and asked the county’s Clerk and Recorder’s Office staff to help her sign the document, but they refused and said that only the business owner could fill out the form, according to court documents. Martinez then sued the county to force it to change its policies to be more accessible, and the county once again fought Martinez’s allegations that staff had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Five years later, a federal jury in San Francisco ruled that Alameda County had discriminated against Martinez and her request for reasonable accommodation, awarding her $1. 2 million nearly all of which was for legal fees. Her attorney, Tim Elder, said the county counsel’s “overly litigious mishandling” of a foundational civil rights case should outrage the public. “Plaintiff Lisamaria Martinez was willing to resolve this case five years ago for no damages, minimal legal fees and the County of Alameda agreeing to change its policy,” Elder said. “The county refused to work with us.” In commenting on the Loggervale case, Judge Alsup emphasized how the county’s legal approach had cost the county. “In my view, the reason it’s a large verdict is the way Mr. Gilbert tried the case and not because of what actually happened. It’s quite clear to me that it was the way in which this case was tried that led to this big verdict,” Alsup said. “When I finally do this order, I want your boss to read it, because there are so many things you said in your brief that turned out to be false.”.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/11/24/how-alameda-countys-stonewalling-legal-approach-has-cost-taxpayers-millions/