The "donning and doffing" lawsuit filed by about 900 Long Beach police officers against the city of Long Beach "has essentially been settled," City Attorney Bob Shannon told the Press-Telegram on Tuesday.

The police officers won't receive a cash settlement, but will be given 47 vacation hours over four years, Shannon said. The city will also pay the officers' attorneys $300,000, he said.

"This is a very excellent settlement for the city, I think, under the circumstances," Shannon said.

Greg Hafif, a Claremont attorney who represented the officers, confirmed that "we've reached an agreement in principle that needs to go through some procedural hoops."

The officers filed the lawsuit in December 2006 to seek reimbursement for allegedly unpaid time they spent putting on their uniforms and protective equipment, attending classes, waiting in court, attending briefings and many other routine tasks.

Hafif said that a deciding factor in seeking the settlement was a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in March. In that case, Bamonte v. City of Mesa (Arizona), the court ruled that donning and doffing lawsuits are viable only if a department has a rule or regulation in place that officers must get dressed at work.

Long Beach didn't have such a rule, so the court decision negated the donning and doffing portion of the Long Beach case, but not all of the police officers' claims, Hafif said.

"Given the 9th Circuit's ruling of Bamonte, I think it's a fair settlement," the attorney said.

Shannon said that the deal was reached earlier this month and that he informed the City Council by e-mail Tuesday, though a few details need to be worked out before the settlement is finalized.

Of the 899 current and former officers that had filed the lawsuit, 120 had dropped out before the settlement was reached, but the terms of the deal will apply to all current police officers, Shannon said. The Long Beach Police Department has 883 police officers, according to Braden Phillips, chief of the department's administration bureau.

"We were not going to punish the officers that opted out," Shannon said.

Under the settlement, all officers will get 12 hours of extra vacation time per year for three years, and then 11 hours in the final year. The vacation time can't be cashed out, Shannon said.

Retired officers who were plaintiffs in the lawsuit will be given 25 hours for their sick hours bank, which upon retirement can be used to cover medical expenses, he said. Similarly, current officers who retire before the four-year term of the settlement is over will put their unused extra vacation hours into their sick hours bank.

Any police officer who resigns or is fired will lose all of the settlement vacation hours that he or she has accrued, Shannon said. The extra vacation time will start around Jan. 1 and won't be given to any new police hires, the city attorney said.

Although the council had approved the settlement in August in closed session, Hafif rejected the proposal, Shannon said.

He said that the lawsuit had been in mediation, and the mediator had suggested a more costly settlement - specifically, greater attorney fees, Hafif said - that the council rejected. An attempt by Hafif to get a court to force the city to accept the mediator's proposal failed, and he accepted the city's offer.

"What we ultimately paid was substantially less than the mediator's proposal," Shannon said, though he wouldn't give details of the mediator's proposition.

Shannon said that the officers had been asking for "tens of millions of dollars" in the lawsuit.

Phillips, the police administrator, said that he couldn't put a dollar figure on the vacation time agreed to in the settlement. However, to maintain staffing levels the department likely will have to use officer overtime, he said.

"Now that we've got the settlement deal, we're going to have to sit down and develop a plan to manage the implementation to minimize the impact on our operation and our budget," Phillips said. "It's going to be a challenge, and we're going to have to work at it to minimize the impact."

Although the financial impact may not be clear yet, the potential effect on staffing can be fairly easily calculated.

If all 883 officers - who work 10-hour shifts - take their 12 extra vacation hours in 2011, that amounts to almost three officers off duty on average every day of the year.

Budget shortfalls have already forced city officials to slash Long Beach's police force to levels not seen since 2002.

Before the city and its police officers ever agreed to the settlement, the lawsuit had already cost Long Beach about $1.1 million for outside legal counsel. Shannon said that amount, which the council approved in January with a contract extension, hasn't significantly increased since then.

Phillips added that to prevent similar future lawsuits, the Police Department has changed its practices.

Briefings have been pushed back by 10 or 15 minutes at the beginning of each shift to allow time for officers to put on their uniforms and protective gear, and the department is ensuring that officers are paid for other work duties, he said. Also, supervisors must approve contacting any officers when they're off duty, Phillips said.

A string of police donning-and-doffing lawsuits have targeted California cities in recent years, with mixed results. Federal courts have ruled in favor of police officers, for cities, and even called a draw in one case.

Settlements in such cases have also varied widely. Shannon said he believed Long Beach's settlement is better than many of those reached in other cities.

For example, Oakland settled a donning-and-doffing lawsuit last December filed by more than 500 police officers.

In that deal,the city agreed to pay $1.75 million in attorney's fees and costs within a two-year period, the Oakland Tribune reported. The settlement also required Oakland to give roughly 130 hours of vacation to plaintiffs who were still on the force and to award cash payments of $3,500 to plaintiffs who had since retired.

Long Beach Police settlement details

Long Beach police officers have settled a lawsuit against the city to compensate them for allegedly unpaid work.

Under the settlement:

All officers will get 47 hours of extra vacation time over four years. The vacation time can't be cashed out, and officers who resign or are fired will lose the hours.

Retired officers who were plaintiffs will get 25 hours for their sick hours bank, which retirees can use to cover medical expenses. Those who retire during the four-year settlement period will put their unused vacation hours into their sick bank.

The city will pay $300,000 in attorney's fees.