The city of San Diego is sounding the alarm, and the numbers are striking. Yesterday, Angela Colton, the city’s Risk Department Manager, presented data showing that liability costs have grown at what she described as an “exponential and almost untenable rate.” In 2001, the highest single settlement or judgment the city paid out was $1.3 million. In 2026, that figure reached $30 million. The number of claims the city is receiving is rising just as sharply, and as Colton made clear, the damage is felt far beyond any single department: “This is far outpacing tax growth and taking resources from other city services.”

Colton was direct about the scope of the problem. The surge in liability costs is not isolated to law enforcement, but runs across city infrastructure and services of all kinds. Insurance premiums are rising in response, while simultaneously limiting coverage. And critically, Colton noted that San Diego is not an outlier: “The city of San Diego is not unique. This is most definitively a statewide issue.”

She is right. Over 100 miles north, Los Angeles is grappling with the same crisis. A Wall Street Journal editorial last year reported that litigation abuse is “busting the city’s budget,” with lawsuit payouts totaling an estimated $301 million. Los Angeles City administrative officer Matthew Szabo put it plainly before the City Council: “Plaintiff attorneys are getting rich at the expense of taxpayers and city services. Every dollar that goes towards a liability payout due to a lawsuit is reducing a city service.” 

From San Diego to Los Angeles, the pattern is the same: billboard attorneys flood the system with inflated claims, settlements balloon, insurance markets destabilize, and the bill lands on the public. The money that should fund roads, public health infrastructure, and community services is instead flowing into the pockets of personal injury lawyers.

California lawmakers now face a clear choice. The evidence from San Diego and Los Angeles is not abstract, but is a direct accounting of what lawsuit abuse costs in reduced city services, rising premiums, and drained public budgets. As Colton warned, this is a statewide issue that demands a statewide solution. Policymakers in Sacramento should pass meaningful lawsuit abuse reform before more city budgets, and the communities that depend on them, are pushed past the breaking point.