City of Eugene paid private lawyers $215,000 to fight lawsuits filed by fired police oversight official

City of Eugene paid private lawyers $215,000 to fight lawsuits filed by fired police oversight official: That cost is on top of the $215,000 the city is paying the fired employee

That $215,000 paid by the city of Eugene to settle lawsuits filed by former city deputy police auditor Dawn Reynolds?

It turns out, that’s only about half what the city spent on the litigation.

The city paid another $215,000 or so to a team of private attorneys it hired to defend the city and Police Auditor Mark Gissiner against allegations contained in two suits filed by Reynolds after the city fired her in 2010, Eugene officials said.

Several lawyers from the Eugene firm Harrang Long Gary Rudnick worked for the city on the cases. In her lawsuits, Reynolds asserted that she was targeted for retaliation and wrongfully terminated after reporting alleged misconduct in the police auditor’s office and in the police department.

Staff lawyers in Eugene’s city attorney’s office also handled aspects of the ­Reynolds cases.

Officials did not say how much time the city’s in-house lawyers spent on the suits filed by Reynolds but said that because the staff attorneys are salaried employes of the city, they make the same amount of money regardless of the type of cases they work.

Had the city not settled with Reynolds, it might have spent an additional $150,000 in attorney fees, city spokeswoman Jan Bohman said. That estimate takes into account the potential cost of fighting both lawsuits at trial and then at the appellate level. 

According to the settlement agreement finalized last week, the city is to issue Reynolds a payroll check for $80,000 to compensate her for economic damages and lost wages; write her a second check for $63,334 to cover noneconomic losses she claims to have suffered; and pay her $71,666 in attorney fees.

A no-liability clause in the agreement means that neither side in the dispute admits any wrongdoing.

Gissiner fired Reynolds — his deputy police auditor at the time — in 2010. Reynolds then sued, alleging Gissiner had fired her in a retaliatory move after she reported abuses of authority and law violations by Eugene police officers and the police auditor’s office.

Gissiner said he fired Reynolds because she exercised poor judgment and was insubordinate, according to court records.

Eugene officials say the city is self-insured, which means that it regularly puts money into a fund that is large enough to cover all anticipated legal costs without dipping into other funds that pay for other city programs and services.

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