The same firm used by City of Eureka in lawsuit against Squires hit with a class action lawsuit & loss of contract

Silver and Wright is a firm used by the City of Eureka. Other cities in California also use this law firm.  They have been in the news lately.

This is the same firm representing the City of Eureka in their lawsuit against Betty and Floyd Squires.



A class action suit has been filed against Silver and Wright by the Institute of Justice.

http://ij.org/press-release/class-action-lawsuit-challenges-california-cities-profit-prosecution-scheme/

"Palm Springs City Hall nearly hired a law firm that has been criticized for charging exorbitant fees to unsuspecting residents in the eastern Coachella Valley, but a contract with the firm was pulled from a city council meeting agenda shortly before it was set for approval in a routine vote on Wednesday night."

The Palm Springs City Council was on the verge of hiring Silver & Wright, a firm that specializes in recovering legal costs from property owners, to target the city's most problematic blighted properties, like vacant lots and abandoned buildings.

Silver & Wright was hired by Coachella and Indio for similar purposes a few years ago. The Desert Sun recently revealed that the law firm, empowered by those city contracts, billed residents who committed very minor crimes more than a total of $122,000 in “prosecution fees” – making them pay to prosecute themselves. The firm also assisted Coachella in heavily fining a 91-year-old woman who was dying of dementia because she owned a nuisance property.

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/local/palm-springs/2018/01/25/palm-springs-backs-off-hiring-silver-wright-law-firm-behind-prosecution-fees-indio-and-coachella/1065835001/

The Desert Sun investigation identified 18 cases in which the firm charged defendants more than $122,000 in “prosecution fees” since it was hired by Indio and Coachella a few years ago. If the property owners don’t pay, the cities can put a lien on their land and seize their homes.

In most of those cases, there is huge disparity between the crime and the prosecution costs. Defendants who were fined only a few hundred dollars by the court ended up paying five or ten times that much to prosecutors. For example, a Coachella family with a busted garage door and an overgrown, junk-filled yard was billed $18,500. When the family appealed the bill to an administrative hearing officer, Silver & Wright added $6,700 – raising the bill to $25,200.

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2017/11/24/death-threats-follow-report-into-indio-and-coachella-law-firm-who-billed-residents-high-prosecution/892968001/