Jess E. Stephens

Jess E. Stephens (May 4, 1882 – December 2, 1953) was an American attorney who was noted for his legal work on behalf of an important traffic tunnel project in Los Angeles and for a union railroad station there, as well as his handling of claims against the city after the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam. He later became a judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Personal Stephens was born May 4, 1882 in State Line, Indiana, the son of Edwin Elias Stephens and Arminda Jane Rice, both of Ohio. He had a brother, Albert Lee Stephens, and four sisters. The family moved to Compton, California when Jess was 2, and he attended school there. In February 1900 he was graduated from Los Angeles High School, and then he studied law with a firm of attorneys and at Stanford University.

He was married to Alice Bernice Cherry of Iowa and Illinois in the Pico Heights Congregational Church on September 1 or 18, 1907, and they had two children.

He was a member of the Elks, the Masons, the Shriners and the Whitley Park Country Club.

Stephens died at age 71 on December 2, 1953 in his home at 1416 N. Hayvenhurst Drive, West Hollywood. A Protestant, he was buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.

Vocation Stephens was admitted to the bar in 1904 after undergoing the last oral examination ever conducted by the California Supreme Court.

As city attorney, he was notable for:

His work as counsel in the Second Street Tunnel litigation in the 1920s, His handling of claims arising from the collapse of the Saint Francis Dam in 1928. He obtained settlements from all the claimants but one, and the city won the single suit that was filed.

In December 1937 he was appointed by Governor Frank Merriam to the Los Angeles Superior Court, along with Clement Nye and Benjamin Scheinman. He served in the Appellate Division with Judges Hartley Shaw and Edward T. Bishop. Stephens retired from the court in October 1953, at the age of 69, saying that ill health prevented him from serving longer.

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