‘Nearly impossible’
As recently as October 2009 Fishman, then a candidate for City Council, said an out-of-court settlement of the Macpherson lawsuit was “nearly impossible.”
At the time, attorneys for Macpherson were eyeing each other over a seemingly unbridgeable chasm.
The first settlement talks in more than a decade, brokered by then-Assemblyman Ted Lieu, had been followed by a $4.5 million settlement offer from the city, which Macpherson dismissed as a “nuisance value” amount.
Macpherson and the city had even taken the step of undergoing a two-day nonbinding mediation session led by Judge John E. Ryan, who presided over the landmark bankruptcy of Orange County.
The two sides sat apart while the judge shuttled back and forth, but no settlement resulted.
