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Last fall I reported that Chicago has been paying more in legal settlements and judgments than LA, Houston, Phoenix, Philly, and Dallas combined. From the beginning of 2005 through the middle of last year, Chicago paid out nearly $230 million. Los Angeles, which has a million more residents, paid out about $77 million in that time. The vast majority of Chicago’s payments were for lawsuits involving the police department.

The city has since released data for the second half of 2008, and a little number crunching shows that while the pace of payouts may be slowing, taxpayers are still spending piles of money on these legal expenses:

 

TOTAL PAYOUTS

POLICE PAYOUTS

OUTSIDE COUNSEL COSTS

2005

 $                  33,843,218

 $                   22,704,681

 $                    12,449,120

2006

 $                  48,015,706

 $                   33,499,150

 $                    11,513,958

2007

 $                  44,731,829

 $                   37,146,953

 $                    12,640,506

2008

 $                129,670,874

 $                   78,727,632

 $                    15,666,458

      TOTAL

 $                256,261,627

 $                 172,078,416

 $                    52,270,042