L.A. County Ruled Liable for Malibu Slide Damage : County Ruled Liable for Slide Damage at Malibu

In a case that could set the pattern for more than 200 others and cost the taxpayers as much as $500 million, a judge ruled Friday that Los Angeles County should pay damages to a couple whose $2.3-million home was destroyed in a massive 1983 landslide at Malibu’s Big Rock Mesa.

Margaret and August Hansch filed one of the 230 suits lodged against the county and several public agencies on the grounds that an ancient landslide was reactivated by a rise in the water table as the result of a drainage system and seepage pits that the county helped plan and approved.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jack T. Ryburn agreed with the couple, finding after a 2 1/2-month trial that the county was “in the best position to assess the risk involved” in developing the mesa with seepage pits, rather than sewers, and “it must now bear the loss when damage occurs.”

Because of the slide, which involved 150 to 250 acres, 30 homes have been condemned by the county as unsafe, and nearly 200 others sustained some damage. Values of homes, damaged or not, have plunged.

Total liability in all the suits has been estimated at anywhere from $200 million to--in the view of county Supervisor Deane Dana--”as high as $500 million.”

Having declared that the county is liable for damages in the Hansch case, Ryburn set Oct. 15 for opening of the jury phase of the case to determine exactly how much the couple should receive.

Their suit sought $2.3 million for the house built only three years before it was destroyed in September, 1983, and an unspecified amount for emotional distress.

The judge ruled, however, that the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, one of the agencies being sued, was not liable, because the streets and drains it installed actually resulted in less water on the mesa “and were not a substantial contributing cause” of the damage.

Earlier, Ryburn dismissed the cases against two other defendants, Waterworks District 29 and the state Department of Transportation. The homeowners claimed that leaks in the waterworks system and Caltrans cuts in the hillside contributed to the slide.

Not Immediately Clear

It was not immediately clear Friday whether the decision meant plaintiffs in the other suits will have to establish county liability individually or may now proceed more or less directly to the point of determining how much the county must pay them.

Attorney Richard Norton, who represents the Hansches, as well as 50 other Big Rock Mesa families, said he believes that under an established legal doctrine, the county will not be able to retry the issue of its liability once it has been established in a like case.

Norton said it is “improbable” that the other plaintiffs will have to go through the same procedure. He called the Hansch suit the “test case.”

William Vaughn, the O’Melveny & Myers attorney defending the county in the welter of suits, was not available to comment on the point or to say whether an appeal was planned. His office said he was in a meeting Friday night.

Attorney Kenneth Chiate, who represents 160 families who filed suit, also was not reachable.

Ralph Saltsman, one of the Big Rock Mesa homeowners and an attorney, agreed with Norton.

‘Precedent Set’

“I think there is a precedent set . . . that will ultimately lead to a finding of liability,” he said. “I think there’s a possibility the county will now be precluded from saying they’re not liable.”

In any event, Saltsman suggested, “the time period for the other homeowners could be cut from six months to a day and a half.”

He added, “I don’t think the county has ever seen a lawsuit this big.”

Norton said it was “gratifying that the people who have their homes slide out from under them are going to be able to recover.”

“I feel good about that,” he said.

When the trial began in mid-July, Norton contended that the county had known since the early 1960s that the mesa was the site of an ancient landslide but nevertheless, approved residential development with seepage pits for the next 20 years.

He produced reports from 1961 and 1962 that mapped the slide and predicted that increased ground water could trigger renewed ground movement.

Water Table

In 1973, Norton told the court, a county study showed that the mesa’s water table had risen to 200 feet, but the county took no action to lower the level. He said four horizontal drains the community was required to maintain for the entire mesa were inadequate to drain the water.

He said then, “Instead of solving the ground water problem, the county turned (it) over to the homeowners.”

The judge said he was finding for the Hansches under the legal concept of inverse condemnation, which “stems from the constitutional mandate that private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation.”

The county, Ryburn said, approved the (inadequate) drainage system for Big Rock Mesa, “but now contends that it did not accept the drains so they are not a public work. However, the drains were impliedly, if not expressly, accepted.”

Saltsman said the inverse condemnation ruling means the plaintiffs will be able to collect up to one-third of the damage amount as additional reimbursement for attorneys’ fees and costs.

It was not known Friday whether the county still intends to go ahead with countersuits against 300 past and present owners, developers and architects on the basis of its contention that they are actually responsible for the slide.

Times staff writer Lyndon Stambler contributed to this article.