Commissioners reassign county counsel in Fagan litigation after courtroom exchange

The LaPorte County Board of Commissioners voted on Aug. 6 to have county attorney Guy DiMartino resume representation in the matter captioned Fagan v. Board of Commissioners and to remove outside counsel Shaw Freeman from the case.

Commissioners discussed a public hearing the day before and concerns that outside counsel had not assimilated the case history and that comments at the hearing prompted judicial admonishment. One commissioner said bringing a second attorney up to speed would waste taxpayer money and argued the county attorney was already familiar with the matter.

"I would like to make a motion to direct you to resume your representation of the county in the matter of ..." a commissioner said during the discussion. The motion was seconded and, after debate about scheduling a closed executive session to fully brief commissioners, the board voted; the meeting record shows the motion carried with a majority.

The board scheduled an executive session to brief commissioners and to allow both attorneys — DiMartino and Friedman — to be present so the commission could be fully informed before additional filings; the county attorney agreed to defer further pleadings until after that meeting to avoid procedural conflicts with the court's calendar.

The board did not discuss confidential executive-session material in public and limited the public remarks to matters already in the record. No further litigation strategy was disclosed at the meeting.