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Pasadena Articles

NLADA Update, Volume 2, No. 13
August 9, 2000

Lawsuit Challenges
Los Angeles Basin Merger

On Friday, August 4 the Legal Services Program for Pasadena and San Gabriel-Pomona Valley filed suit in District Court for the Central District of California challenging the decision of LSC to merge the program with San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services in Pacoima. The merger was announced in April of this year as part of a plan to reduce the number of LSC grantees in the Los Angeles area from five to three for FY 2001.

In its action for declaratory and injunctive relief, the program demands that LSC halt review of competing bids on the consolidated service area pending the resolution of the lawsuit, according to Cresswell Templeton, plaintiff’s attorney from the firm of Hill, Farrer and Burrill in Los Angeles. The suit basically challenges the LSC state planning process and whether LSC’s process has been arbitrary and capricious in defining programs’ geographical boundaries.

NLADA Update, Volume 3, No. 1
January 12, 2001

Legal Services of Pasadena TRO Application Denied

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz has denied Legal Aid Society of Pasadena’s application for a temporary restraining order against the LSC. This is the latest development in the case, in which the Legal Services Program for Pasadena and San Gabriel-Pomona Valley (an LSC grantee in 2000) is challenging LSC’s consolidation of service areas in Southern California.

In a December 22, 2000 ruling, the court stated, “Legal Aid has not established a probability of success on the merits because its own showing fails to demonstrate that Legal Services Corporation’s conduct was not rational and LSC’s Opposition demonstrates probable justification for its conduct.” The district court is currently considering LSC’s motion to dismiss.

The court also stated that Legal Aid Society of Pasadena had not shown that LSC violated the applicable statutes in relation to notice and comment.

NLADA Update, Volume 3, No. 4
February 23, 2001

US District Court Denies LSC Motion to Dismiss Pasadena Case

On February 9, 2001, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied the Legal Services Corporation’s motion to dismiss the case brought by the Legal Aid Society of Pasadena (LASP) against LSC. The case challenges LSC’s decision to consolidate LASP’s service area with that of San Fernando Valley Neighborhood Legal Services (SFVNLS). This decision followed the Court’s December 22, 2000, denial of a temporary restraining order to stop LSC from awarding the grant for the consolidated service area to SFVNLS.

In denying the LSC motion to dismiss, the Court relied heavily on a 1980 9th Circuit decision, Spokane County Legal Services, Inc. v. LSC, 614 F. 2d 662 (9th Cir. 1980). The Court found the Spokane case implicitly held that there was a private right of action under the LSC Act to seek judicial review of the LSC decision to change service area boundaries in the Los Angeles/Orange County metropolitan area and rejected LSC’s argument that there was nothing for the Court to review because LSC’s discretion to alter service area boundaries was unfettered.

LSC urged the Court to review and validate its decision based on the current record, but the Court found that record to be incomplete. The Court noted that there appeared from the current record to be sound reasons supporting LSC’s decision, but “the full record could reveal there was no rational connection between the facts found and the choices made.”

Finally, the Court rejected LSC’s argument that the notice and comment provisions of the LSC Act did not require LSC to provide notice and an opportunity for comment to interested parties, including LASP and the client community, before making its decision to reconfigure the service area. The Court found that the LSC decision to reconfigure the service area would have a significant effect on private interests and presumptively entitled them to an opportunity for notice and comment.

The Court denied the LSC motion to dismiss despite serious doubts about LASP’s ultimate likelihood of success and the possibility of any meaningful remedy that would negate the LSC reconfiguration action.


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