Williams v. County Of Monterey
- Beth Freeman
- 5:19-cv-01811
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Williams v. County Of Monterey, Judge Freeman denied approval of a $40,000 settlement because counsel sought to withhold part of each child’s share for future litigation costs.
The order affected L.S. and Q.S., whose settlement shares were subject to court approval, as well as Monia Williams, plaintiffs’ counsel, and settling defendants Josefina Duran and Marcos Estrada. The court denied approval of the proposed minors’ compromise.
What happened
Monia Williams, individually and as guardian for L.S. and Q.S., asked the court to approve a settlement with Josefina Duran and Marcos Estrada after the children were removed from Williams’s care. The settlement totaled $40,000.
The proposed distribution included $6,000 for each child. The court found the distribution fair and reasonable but noted that the plaintiffs wanted to take $2,500 from each child’s share to pay counsel’s future litigation costs, leaving $3,500 for each child in a protected account. The court said it had not found a case allowing minor settlement funds to be held by counsel for that purpose.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied the petition to approve the minors’ compromise. The opinion does not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
The detailed version
- Williams v. County Of Monterey · No. 5:19-cv-01811
- Beth Freeman
- Dec. 14, 2020
Background
Monia Williams brought the action individually and as guardian ad litem—a person appointed to represent minors in litigation—for L.S. and Q.S. The defendants included the County of Monterey, the City of Salinas, and individual social workers and police officers. The action followed the removal of L.S. and Q.S. from Williams’s care.
Williams and the minors reached a $40,000 settlement with Josefina Duran and Marcos Estrada. The two settling defendants did not oppose the request for court approval of the minors’ settlement.
Proposed Distribution
The proposed distribution was:
- $9,451.47 to reimburse plaintiffs’ counsel for costs already incurred; - $12,274.26 to plaintiffs’ counsel for attorneys’ fees already incurred; - $6,272.27 to Williams; - $6,000 to L.S.; and - $6,000 to Q.S.
The court stated that this proposed distribution was fair and reasonable. It also explained that courts must independently protect minors’ interests and commonly require settlement funds for minors to be placed in blocked accounts or similarly secured investments until the minors reach at least age eighteen.
The plaintiffs proposed deducting $2,500 from each child’s $6,000 share and paying that money to counsel for future litigation costs. They therefore asked that only $3,500 of each child’s settlement proceeds be placed in a blocked account. The court noted that the plaintiffs had not cited, and the court had not found, a case permitting minor settlement proceeds to be retained by counsel for future litigation costs rather than deposited for the minors’ benefit.
Ruling
Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied the ex parte petition for approval of the minors’ compromise. The court indicated that it would have had no difficulty approving the settlement if the full $6,000 allocated to each minor had been placed in a blocked account for that minor’s benefit. The order addressed approval of the settlement for the minors and did not decide the underlying claims against the defendants.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.