L.A. Man Sues City Over Handling of LADWP Billing Lawsuit

VAN NUYS, CA — A man who won a lawsuit against LADWP over erroneous utility buildings is now filing a federal lawsuit against Los Angeles, saying he was unknowingly represented by the same lawyers as the city. Antwon Jones says city officials used him as an "unwitting pawn" by conspiring with Paradis Law Group to achieve a more favorable ruling.

Jones was part of a class-action lawsuit against LADWP, after it was revealed a faulty billing system sent thousands of customers inaccurate bills in 2013. According to the lawsuit, the broken system charged Jones over $340 a month in August 2014, although he lived in a one-bedroom apartment and previously averaged $25 to $30 in charges each month.

After complaining about the billing issue online, Jones says New York attorney Paul Paradis contacted him about joining a class-action lawsuit against the city and LADWP. According to the complaint, Jones signed a retainer with the law firm, without knowing the firm was also representing the city in it's own suit against PwC, who implemented the billing system.

"This massive conflict of interest would be covered up by the participants for approximately the next five years," Isaacs alleged.

Jones said the law firm kept it a secret buy assigning two attorneys, Jack Landskroner and Michael Libman, to serve as his counsel of record, although Paradis coordinated with the city to ghostwrite the complaint. The Superior Court approved the settlement in 2017, with Landskroner and Libman receiving about $11.9 million in attorney's fees, although the settlement was advantageous to the city and less favorable to the actual plaintiffs.

"As is now well established, Paradis and the city had used Jones as an unwitting pawn in procuring the fraudulent and collusive settlement in the Jones v. City case," according to the plaintiff's attorneys in the current suit. "But due to a cover-up that included Paradis, Kiesel, Landskroner, Libman, Feuer, Clark, Peters and others, the collusion and fraud underlying the settlement did not come to light until 2019, when it was exposed by PwC in the course of defending itself in City v. PwC."

City Attorney Mike Feuer said he hadn't yet examined the full complaint, "but it just appears to be a rehash of old allegations. I can say unequivocally that I have always acted with complete integrity, and any allegation to the contrary is absolutely false. Period."

City News Service contributed to this report.