City attorney to seek ordinance allowing in-house filing of claims under $35,000 to speed recoveries, committee told

The Topeka City Committee voted on May 14, 2025, to forward a proposed ordinance to the governing body that would authorize the city attorney to initiate lawsuits and other legal claims in the city’s name for civil claims with initial damages of $35,000 or less.

"I'm here to discuss a proposed ordinance authorizing the city to file lawsuits and pursue claims for damages caused to city property," said Jeff Lydic of the city litigation department, who explained the ordinance language included in the committee packet. Lydic told the committee the threshold of $35,000 aligns with the municipal settlement authority currently in the Topeka Municipal Code and would allow timely filing of routine tort and property-damage claims handled in-house.

Nut graf: The proposal is intended to reduce the administrative friction of seeking frequent, small-dollar authorizations from the governing body, to prevent statute-of-limitations problems in time-sensitive matters, and to improve efficiency and strategy for recovering damages that the city currently pays to repair.

Lydic described scenarios that can jeopardize the city’s ability to recover — for example, when a contractor cuts an underground line and the two-year negligence statute of limitations approaches before a governing-body meeting can be called or quorum obtained. He said the 35,000 threshold was chosen because city policy already allows settlements up to that amount without full council approval.

Committee members asked for a clarification to ensure the proposed authorization would not create a routinized bypass for matters that go beyond simple damage recovery — for example, declaratory actions or matters without a direct damages figure. The chair and the city attorney agreed the ordinance language could be refined to limit the authority to tort/property-damage claims (with an initial damages amount) so that non-monetary or high-profile civil litigation would still come before the governing body.

Ending: The committee voted to forward the draft ordinance to the full governing body with direction for staff to revise the language to address the chair’s concern about non-damage declaratory actions. Staff said the litigation department will return to council with the revised ordinance language.