State works to head off lawsuits

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — Massive legal judgments against the state in recent years have Gov. Gary Locke and Attorney General Christine Gregoire looking to state agencies and the Legislature for ways to limit the state’s exposure.

The state paid $85 million in settlements and court-ordered verdicts last year, more than three times what it had paid in any other single year.

That prompted Locke and Gregoire to start the Risk Management Task Force, which issued recommendations Wednesday.

The Legislature would have to change laws to implement some proposals, including a way to let state agencies apologize to negligence victims without fear their words would be used against them in a lawsuit.

Other recommendations can start right away, such as ordering state agencies to better train workers in areas particularly vulnerable to lawsuits.

The task force started meeting in March, shortly after the staggering jury verdicts started rolling out.

Some of the largest settlements and awards came in cases where state corrections workers failed to supervise released felons who then killed people. Another case involved the state’s failure to supervise an adult home for the developmentally disabled where patients were being abused.

"We need to raise the level of understanding about risk management in the Legislature," said Marty Brown, director of the governor’s Office of Financial Management. "The only time they talk about it is when they have to pay a claim."

The task force, composed of agency directors, private and government lawyers and legislators, failed to agree on one major point: whether to require agencies to conduct reviews of their programs after a major tragedy occurs and whether that information should be admissible in court.

The agencies don’t want to do the reviews if the information could be used against them in court. Trial lawyers don’t want the agencies to knowingly continue to do something wrong without the lawyers being able to hold them accountable in court.

The same debate is sure to play out again as the Legislature tries to address the issue when it reconvenes in January, Brown said.

The only agency that conducts such reviews now is the state Department of Social and Health Services, which is required to so by law after a child dies in its care.

Those reviews are often used in court and have led to large damages, discouraging other agencies that are not bound to do so by law.

"We want agencies to be accountable, to do those loss-prevention reviews and do them thoroughly," said Joe Lehman, secretary of the state Department of Corrections. But "do I dare gather that data? Our attorneys say, ‘Be careful.’ "

There were other disagreements on the panel. Lehman wanted a recommendation to the Legislature to cap the amount of money someone could collect against the state in court.

But Gregoire said she did not want to address limiting liability before determining whether agencies are doing something wrong.

"We wanted to clean up our house first," Gregoire said.

A bill to limit the huge jury awards against the state came up in the Legislature last year but did not pass. Lehman likely will bring it before the Legislature again next year, Gregoire said.

The task force also recommended that the Legislature move the state Risk Management Office from the department of General Administration to the governor’s budget office.

Brown, who directs the budget office, said the move would give the issue a higher profile.

The Legislature also should consider assessing the state’s potential liability in every piece of legislation it brings up, Brown said.