LOS ANGELES – City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto announced today that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court has dismissed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy case filed in June by the Greater Los Angeles Zoological Association (“GLAZA”).
The City asked the Bankruptcy Court to dismiss GLAZA’s case, arguing that GLAZA filed the bankruptcy case in bad faith by seeking bankruptcy protection to delay the City’s lawsuit currently pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. The City is seeking a state court judgment to secure the return of approximately $50 million in charitable funds raised on behalf of the City for the benefit of the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens.
GLAZA is an entity formed in 1963 as a nonprofit corporation to assist the City with fundraising for the Zoo. The relationship between the City and GLAZA ended in June 2025. In June 2025, Feldstein Soto’s Office secured a preliminary injunction preventing GLAZA from misusing the $50 million in question.
“We are pleased that the Bankruptcy Court recognized GLAZA’s bankruptcy filing as yet another bad faith attempt to derail the ongoing litigation for its own benefit,” said Hydee Feldstein Soto, Los Angeles City Attorney. “The filings in the bankruptcy case revealed that GLAZA paid over a million dollars over the last year or so – at least $748,000 to its president and at least $390,000 to its lawyers – to obstruct the City’s efforts to recover its own funds from GLAZA as the City’s fiduciary”.
At the July 23, 2026 hearing on the City’s motion to dismiss, the Bankruptcy court agreed that “it could not be more clear to me that this case should be dismissed for cause, and that cause is bad faith.” The court further explained that GLAZA’s bankruptcy petition was “about as bad faith as you can get for a bankruptcy filing,” and that there was “ample record” before the court to suggest that GLAZA filed its petition “for the purpose of thwarting or delaying” the City’s state court action.
The City of Los Angeles owns and has been operating the Zoo since it opened in 1966. In December 2024, the City filed suit against GLAZA for breach of contract and breach of its fiduciary duties to the Zoo and the City, seeking monetary damages and injunctive, declaratory, and other relief. This decision allows that lawsuit to be resolved without forum shopping and manufactured delay.
This litigation is being managed by the City Attorney’s Public Rights Branch.
Case No.: 2:26-bk-16410-DS: Order Granting Motion to Dismiss
United States Bankruptcy Court - Central District, Los Angeles Division
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Hydee Feldstein Soto is the 43rd Los Angeles City Attorney, elected in November 2022 and sworn into office in December 2022. Her team of nearly 1,000 legal professionals, including 500+ attorneys, carries out legal work for the City of Los Angeles at her direction and under her supervision. She is the first female City Attorney in L.A. history.