Tort lawsuit settlements
Tort lawsuit settlements for $1 million or more
As of September 2023, the Office of the County Counsel provides quarterly reports to the Board of Supervisors identifying the settlement of tort lawsuits that have been filed against the County, in which the County is paying $1 million or more. Below is the annual timeline for the quarterly reports:
- March: Report covering October – December of prior calendar year
- June: Report covering January – March of current calendar year
- September: Report covering April – June of current calendar year
- December: Report covering July – September of current calendar year
The reports are available on the Board of Supervisors meeting agendas website. In addition, we include the following information on this page relating to such settlements: (1) date the action was filed; (2) court in which the action was filed (3) names of the parties; (4) case number; (5) date of execution of settlement agreement; and (6) settlement amount.
For the quarterly reporting periods covering January 1, 2023 through March 31, 2024, the County had one settlement of a tort lawsuit in which the County paid $1 million or more.
On March 20, 2024, the County executed a settlement agreement with Soheil Hejazi Shoar and Farzaneh Mohammadi in the amount of $2,125,000 to resolve a lawsuit filed on February 8, 2022, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Case No. 22-CV-00799 WHA. The lawsuit concerned the death of 52-year-old Vahid Hejazi Shoar. On December 27, 2020, Mr. Shoar was booked into the County’s Main Jail. During a routine welfare check, Mr. Shoar was found nonresponsive in his cell. It was determined Mr. Shoar had died by suicide. The plaintiffs—Mr. Shoar’s surviving spouse and adult son—asserted claims under state and federal law alleging that the County and jail supervisors and staff had been negligent and deliberately indifferent to Mr. Shoar’s serious medical needs, violating his constitutional rights and his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The County disputed the plaintiffs’ claims. The parties’ settlement agreement fully settled and released all of the plaintiffs’ claims without any admission of liability on the part of the County.
This website will be updated at the time of the next quarterly update.