On December 20,2007 a lawsuit was filed by Silver, Hadden, Silver, Wexler & Levine, on behalf ofthe Los Angeles Police Protective League, seeking an injunction against the City of Los Angeles' implementation of a mandatory financiai disclosure policy which would require that all sworn personnel applying or assigued to positions in the gang and narcotics unit complete comprehensive financial disclosure reports on all assets, including outside employment, and liabilities of the employee, spouses, dependents, and joint tenants as well as supporting documentation on such disclosures.

The financial disclosure policy was precipitated by a controversial provision in a Consent Decree which was entered in 2001 between the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department and United States Department of Justice in the aftermath of the highly publicized Rampart Division incident to remedy alleged violations of civil rights. Although the League was thereafter permitted by the Federai Court of Appeal in 2002 to intervene in the lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice, the Court of Appeal did not rescind the Decree and consequently the League has been foreclosed from challenging the financial disclosure provisions ofthe Decree.

While the League has steadfastly maintained that the subject of financial disclosure was beyond the scope of the civil rights lawsuit by the Department of Justice which resulted in the Consent Decree, for nearlyfive years the League has engaged in negotiations with the City in an attempt to create a policy for sensitive assignments which did not violate or otherwise infringe upon privacy and other statutory safeguards.

The lawsuit by the League asserts numerous violations against the City arising from the implementation of the financial disclosure policy, including violation of the California Constitution right of privacy, Public Safety Officers' Procedural Bill of Rights Act, and collective bargaining obligations.