LAKEPORT >> After nearly four years of back and forth, the Lake County Board of Supervisors settled the lawsuit brought against the county by the Lakeside Heights Homeowners.
The two sides agreed on a $4.5 million payment from the county.
Originally, 46 Lakeside Heights property owners claimed damages against the county in the amount of $5 million dollars each. In all, the damage claims reached $230 million.
“Our Board’s decision to settle the lawsuit is not an admission that the claims of the Lakeside Heights property owners are true,” said Lake County Administrative Officer Carol Huchingson in a release announcing the settlement. “Rather, it is recognition of the risks of trial, and the Board’s balancing of the interests of all its constituents, given the uncertain outcome of protracted litigation, which could have been so much worse.”
The Lakeside Heights Homeowners Association, together with property owners, filed the suit in November 2013, alleging that the county’s infrastructure was the cause of a damaging landslide in the area that left part of the neighborhood looking like the aftermath of an earthquake.
According to county officials, the problem became apparent in the Spring of 2013, when water and sewer infrastructure was threatened by land movement. At that time, several private structures and residences in the area had also been damaged or destroyed and Hill Road East was partially blocked by the landslide.
In 2016, the board received a loan from California State Association of California — Excess Insurance Authority (CSAC-EIA) in the amount of $750,000, intended to cover a portion of the cost of legal defense.
However, county officials became concerned that if it was determined at trial that the county was liable under the theory of inverse condemnation, the presence or absence of fault by the county would be completely irrelevant.
County officials remain adamant that neither its water or sewer system caused to the landslide.
The homeowners association’s 2013 lawsuit claimed that a county operated water line about 6-feet deep was to blame for the damaged properties. In a countersuit the county alleged the association’s leaky irrigation line, buried about 8-inches deep, caused a portion of the hill to begin sliding.
As the two sides volleyed the blame, settlement negotiations stalled. In the summer of 2015 representatives from each side met and presented their cases. Hearings continued sporadically from that point.
In January of 2016, both homeowner’s attorney Michael Green and then county supervisor Anthony Farrington said it was the other party’s lack of cooperation that’s kept them from reaching a settlement.
A number of Lakeside Heights residents were forced to move after their homes were red tagged.
Damage due to subsidence are generally excluded from insurance coverage, which means no insurance monies are available to draw upon. For the most part, property owners in Lakeside Heights received no assistance from insurance.
Faced with the same issue, the county intends to seek outside financing, in the form of a loan or loans, in order to pay the Lakeside Heights settlement.
“Unlike many local jurisdictions, Lake County is not accustomed to meeting its obligations with loans, but we are gearing up to do just that for the Lakeside Heights matter,” Huchingson explained.
