A federal judge today ordered the city of Pittsburgh and an ACLU-represented group of plaintiffs to take another try at settling the largest lawsuit to emerge out of the G-20 Summit of world leaders held here in 2009.

U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer wrote in her order that the city and plaintiffs should engage in mediation from July 9 through Aug. 9. A previous mediation occurred in September, and failed to settle the case. Discovery is scheduled to close July 3.

"The judge sending parties back to mediation after discovery is an ordinary part of civil rights litigation," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

The order comes four days after Judge Fischer gave her stamp of approval to a special master's recommendation for resolving a dispute over the extent to which the city has to provide e-mails to the American Civil Liberties Union and allied lawyers.

The ACLU asked in February 2011 for documents describing communications between city officials related to the police handling of a gathering shortly after the summit, but the city took the position that the request didn't cover e-mails. The special master decided that the ACLU has the right to e-mails that include any of 17 search terms involving 12 city officials during the period of Sept. 25 through Oct. 31, 2009.

City Solicitor Dan Regan could not be immediately reached for comment.

The lawsuit originally included 25 plaintiffs who said they were falsely arrested, and in some cases abused, on the night of Sept. 25, 2009, when police broke up a post-summit gathering in Schenley Plaza.

First Published: June 5, 2012, 1:45 p.m.
Updated: June 5, 2012, 5:43 p.m.