Political activist Ozzie Silna and his attorney have declined to discuss the case. Wade Major says he hopes for a positive outcome, because the issues involved in the original lawsuit are no longer relevant to him or Silna.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
The lawyers of political activists Ozzie Silna and Wade Major are negotiating a settlement following last month’s decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Friedman that Major owes Silna an additional $90,000 on top of the $135,000 he was ordered to pay in June to cover Silna’s attorney fees in a lawsuit involving the 2004 City Council election.
“I think there can be a positive outcome to this,” Major said this week. “The issues that this lawsuit was addressing are no longer of importance to me or Ozzie.”
Silna declined to discuss the case this week. He recently hired a new lawyer, Bruce Dunn, who works in an office in Malibu. The Beverly Hills law firm, Weissmann Wolff, had previously represented Silna in this case. Dunn also refused to comment on the case.
“It is my policy in matters of ongoing litigation not to make any public comments,” Dunn said this week.
This case stretches back to March 2004 when Major filed a lawsuit against Silna to prevent him from spending more than $100 per candidate in the council campaign. Major alleged that because Silna had sent out a letter in support of specific candidates and had attended a candidate informational session on behalf of one of them, he was directly involved in their campaigns. If one were directly involved in a candidate’s campaign, city law at the time prohibited that person from spending more than the $100 threshold for the campaign. The law has since been changed to allow people to spend up to $250 per candidate.
Judge Friedman immediately heard the case just a few days after it was filed and ruled against Major because he said Major had not provided enough evidence that Silna was directly involved in the candidates’ campaigns, and that even if it were true, city law provided an opportunity for Major to bring his complaint to a city prosecutor.
Silna later sued for attorney fees. But Friedman ruled in June 2004 that Major did not have to pay them because he had the right to try to correct what he believed was a violation of a campaign finance law. A three-judge panel from the Court of Appeal’s 2nd District overturned Friedman’s decision in December 2005, citing a state law that is designed to protect people from being sued for politically strategic reasons, what is known as the anti-SLAPP law.
The case was then directed to Friedman for him to decide how much money Major must pay Silna. Friedman’s ruling in June that Major must pay $135,000 only covered the cost of appealing the attorney fees decision. Last month’s decision that Major owed an additional $90,000 covered the costs of Major’s original suit, Silna’s initial case regarding the attorney fees and the payment hearings.