$450 k settlement for ex-L.A. County official

In a twist worthy of a Hollywood legal drama, the official credited with saving Los Angeles County taxpayers millions of dollars in legal costs has quietly been paid $450,000 to settle his wrongful-termination suit. Troy Anderson in the Daily News.

Los Angeles County supervisors on July 31 approved the settlement with Robert Nagle, the former litigation cost manager who filed a $2.2 million suit in April and accepted the deal late last month.

In the year since the 58-year-old Agoura Hills attorney was fired, the county's costs for judgments, settlements and outside legal fees have begun to creep back up.

County legal costs hit a high of $109 million in 2002-03 but dropped to $74 million in 2003-04 and $75 million in 2004-05 during Nagle's tenure, according to the County Counsel's Office. They are projected to total $89 million for 2006-07.