City (Seattle) to Pay $1 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over 1999 WTO Arrests

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/03/295/

City to Pay $1 Million to Settle Lawsuit Over 1999 WTO Arrests
by Bob Young

The city of Seattle will pay $1 million to World Trade Organization protesters who were arrested in Westlake Park seven years ago and will clear their records, in a settlement announced Monday.The money will pay for plaintiffs’ legal fees, with the rest divided among up to about 175 protesters, who will get at least $3,000 each, depending on how many file claims, said their attorney Mike Withey.

“We think the cash settlement does send a message that what Seattle did was wrong and we shouldn’t have been denied our constitutional rights,” said Ken Hankin, a Boeing engineer and one of the protesters arrested in Westlake Park during the second day of the 1999 WTO meeting in Seattle.

Withey said Monday’s announcement “closes a chapter in Seattle history” because it likely ends the last of the legal cases arising from protests and arrests involving the WTO meeting.

The settlement is subject to the approval of U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman, Withey said. Pechman will decide how much of the settlement, up to a maximum of $450,000, will go for the protesters’ legal fees.

A federal-court jury ruled in January that the city was liable for arresting protesters without probable cause, a violation of their constitutional rights. But the jury determined the arrests did not violate the protesters’ free-speech rights because they were not made as a result of a city policy to quash the protesters’ anti-WTO viewpoints.

In a prepared statement, City Attorney Tom Carr said he thinks the city would have won if it had appealed the jury’s ruling about unlawful arrests. But Carr said the city’s insurance company decided to settle the case rather than pay for an appeal.

more...