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HERKES: Well, it's under their section, legislative section. <br />RAY: Okay. Okay, Mr. Wurdeman. <br />WURDEMAN: Okay, number two is just basically a semantic matter. <br />Number three, Special Council, this may not be totally clear. <br />RAY: This is Article 5-2.5. <br />WURDEMAN: Yeah, right. The Charter presently requires that when my office hires <br />special Counsel that we get the two-thirds approval of the Council, and I think this is perfectly <br />appropriate when we go out to hire someone to do the things we normally do. However, there <br />are occasions where we are obligated by either collective bargaining agreement or by law to <br />provide individual counsel for employees who get into some kind of a difficulty. And although it <br />has not happened yet, I could foresee a situation where the Police Commission is given the <br />authority to direct that counsel be retained for a police officer, and I could see the possibility that <br />they would so direct, we would go to the Council, the Council would turn us down, and there <br />would be an impasse that would lead to crisis. <br />So, my recommendation is that the present language be retained for the normal situation where <br />Counsel is hired to represent the County for doing County business, but that those instances <br />where we're required to hire counsel to represent individual employees be exempted from this <br />requirement. <br />RAY: Okay. Any questions on that? <br />IRVINE: Do County Council -, not County Councils but Corporation Counsels <br />usually represent just the County or do they also represent individuals the way -? <br />WURDEMAN: It's -, well -. <br />IRVINE: We do here? <br />WURDEMAN: You take -. It depends. You take the normal situation, a police officer <br />gets in some kind of a fight, somebody gets hurt. We could represent both the County and the <br />officer, but it has been determined by the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Supreme Court <br />that if we do so, the County has to agree to fully indemnify the officer for all damages, including <br />punitive damages, that might result. <br />Now, normally, counties or cities are not liable for punitive damages which are in excess of other <br />kinds of damages and are designed to penalize the wrongdoer. The conflict exists when if you got <br />one attorney representing both the County and the officer, conceivably, that attorney could argue <br />9 <br />