MB Civic

By AL BAKER

New York City has reached settlements with about a dozen of the more than 600 people who sued over their arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention, officials said yesterday.

Of the 635 individual claims filed so far, 13 have been settled, said Laura Rivera, a spokeswoman for the city comptroller’s office. She said the city began offering settlements in January 2005 and has paid out a total of $411,072, although individual payout sums were unavailable.

Despite the settlements, city lawyers are fighting legal battles on several fronts that could have far broader consequences for city policies.

Jonathan C. Moore, a lawyer for 23 people arrested during the convention, said he was trying to have his case certified as a class-action lawsuit representing about 1,200 others “whose constitutional rights were violated.” At the same time, the New York Civil Liberties Union is moving ahead with two federal civil rights lawsuits that have shined a spotlight on the policing of the convention and of the related protests.

“These cases raise a host of questions about how the city policed the event, about whether there was a good-faith basis to even bring criminal charges against so many people and about how they have defended the civil suits filed since the convention,” Mr. Moore said. He said the city had created “a very difficult and punishing process” for his clients in the pretrial phase, including long and grueling depositions with prying questions about their lives.

Officials with the City Law Department declined to answer questions about any litigation involving the convention. “Given that the case involves pending litigation and related issues, we felt it inappropriate to comment,” Gail Donoghue, the department’s special counsel, said in an e-mail message sent by a spokeswoman. Ms. Donoghue declined to say how many cases the city had offered to settle, said the spokeswoman, Kate O’Brien Ahlers.

News of the settlements was reported yesterday in The New York Sun. They offer a counterpoint to the city’s vigorous defense of the arrests, said Christopher T. Dunn, the associate legal director of the civil liberties group.

In the cases brought by the group, the city is trying to keep certain documents secret, according to court papers, and is moving to seal the court filings. In addition, though the city has tentatively set dates for the civil liberties group to take depositions from Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly — Aug. 14 and 16 — it may still try to block the depositions, Mr. Dunn said.

“While these settlements indicate the city recognizes some people were wrongly arrested during the convention,” Mr. Dunn said, “the N.Y.P.D. continues steadfastly to defend the mass arrests and prolonged detentions of convention protesters, and the legal challenges to those actions are only intensifying. In addition, the city is going to extraordinary lengths to shield convention documents from public scrutiny.”

Neither Mr. Dunn’s 7 clients nor Mr. Moore’s 23 clients have been offered settlements, both men said.

The city is scheduled to file a formal motion today to seal any legal briefs filed in the fight over the confidentiality of the city’s convention documents, Mr. Dunn said. The New York Times is moving, separately from the civil liberties group, to have those briefs, as well as the underlying documents, open to the public.

Martin R. Stolar, a lawyer who represents about 160 clients suing the city over their arrests, said fewer than 10 of his clients had settled. They have been paid sums of $2,500 to $7,500. He said the actual number of settlements was higher than the comptroller’s office was reporting, and attributed the discrepancy to delays in paperwork, but he could not cite a specific number.

“There are more than 80 lawsuits filed,” Mr. Stolar said.

The convention ran from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2. In all, about 1,800 people were arrested. Many of those arrests were handled in two ways: adjournment in contemplation of dismissal or outright dismissal. Some people pleaded guilty; others faced trials.

In October 2004, the civil liberties group filed the first two cases against the city in federal court, challenging the Police Department’s overall policies of mass arrests, prolonged detentions of up to three days and its practice of fingerprinting those arrested on charges like disorderly conduct and parading without a permit. Lawyers said that outside the scope of the convention, such violations would not ordinarily entail fingerprinting and confinement.