Altercation with LA traffic enforcement officer leads to claim of false arrest. Defense verdict. Los Angeles County.

Facts and Background

• Facts and Background:

  Plaintiff female was parking in the city of Los Angeles at a parking meter.  A traffic officer cited her for an expired meter. 

• Plaintiff's Contentions:

  Plaintiff claimed that the female traffic officer responded rudely and with anger when plaintiff asked the traffic officer to hand her the parking citation for an expired meter. Plaintiff claimed that the traffic officer taunted plaintiff, shoved her, stepped on her toe, wrongfully restrained her, and hit her repeatedly on the back of the head with a handheld ticket machine. When the two were separated, the traffic officer made a citizen’s arrest.

  Plaintiff brought this civil action for injuries, economic losses and emotional distress, claiming she was physically attacked and beaten by a Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) non-sworn traffic enforcement officer.

  Plaintiff’s evidence consisted of testimony from plaintiff and two civilian witnesses. The two witnesses saw only parts of the physical scuffle and concluded that the traffic officer was the aggressor.

• Defendant's Contentions:

  That there were inconsistencies in the eye witness testimony, as demonstrated with videos and prior testimony. Defense elicited favorable evidence from a police witness and the traffic officer to establish that the traffic officer had acted in self-defense and that the citizen’s arrest was justified.

  Further, that plaintiff started the physical confrontation when she punched the traffic officer in the eye without provocation, and that the traffic officer’s act of hitting her once with the handheld machine was an instinctive reaction to being punched.

  The defense contended that the plaintiff’s wrongful battery of the traffic officer set the scuffle in motion, that her act of grabbing the traffic officer’s shirt collar led to them falling into bushes, and that the traffic officer’s multiple strikes against plaintiff in the bushes were justified by self-defense.