Nearly 700 Claims Filed : Homeowners Plan to Sue Port Over Airport Noise

Almost 700 households near Lindbergh Field are preparing to sue the San Diego Unified Port District for $300,000 apiece, claiming noise from the airport has driven down property values and interfered with their personal lives.

A recent California Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for such suits, and an attorney representing 500 families already suing the Long Beach airport says he has that many and more in San Diego ready to do the same here.

John Schimmenti, an El Segundo attorney, said nearly 700 claims have been filed and that he expects to file a test case suit for about 25 plaintiffs in Superior Court by mid-July.

Each claim asks for $100,000 per home in lost property value and $100,000 per person (there is an average of two persons per household) in personal injuries, such as stress, resulting from the noise. But Schimmenti concedes that any awards would probably be far less.

“Typically, homeowners are awarded an easement (giving the public agency right of passage) from 15% to 20% of the value of their home,” he said.

Those residents who owned their homes before their property was affected by airport flight patterns have a “much stronger case” than those who bought their property knowing that the flights would be there, said Schimmenti, who estimated that such cases account for half of those he is handling.

Carlsbad attorney Michael Gatzke, who represents the Port District, said he was taking the claims “very seriously.”

” . . . I obviously don’t think that the claims are justified . ...,” Gatzke said.

For years, residents of Loma Portal have endured the daily booms and thunder from departing jets, Schimmenti said. Homeowners have turned to both the Legislature and the courts to restrict the amount of airport noise.

Their cause suffered a serious setback when a San Diego Superior Court judge ruled in June, 1980, against 180 homeowners who had been awarded $2 million in damages by a Superior Court jury earlier that year, on the grounds that the suit exceeded the five-year statute of limitations.

But on September 29, 1985, the California Supreme Court ruled in a case against the Burbank Airport that airport noise was a “continuous” rather than a “permanent” nuisance. The ruling means that the statute of limitations no longer applies to airport noise suits and that such suits can be launched repeatedly, according to Schimmenti.

“What it’s done is to create a window of opportunity throughout the state for people who own homes in the vicinity of airports; they (the airports) can no longer successfully defend themselves against a suit on the grounds that it was filed too late,” Schimmenti said.

The “opportunity” created by the Supreme Court ruling, however, could be eliminated in the state Legislature. Assembly Bill 1801, containing language already passed by the Legislature and vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian twice before--in 1983 and in 1984--would create a standard statute of limitations of three years for personal injury and five years for property claims in airport noise suits. The legislation has been passed by the Assembly and the Senate Judiciary Committee, and could face a full Senate vote as early as this week.

Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove), who authored the bill, said he believes the change would strike a reasonable balance between the rights of property owners and society’s needs for infrastructure.

“The bill would provide for people’s right to sue if there is a ‘substantial change’ in the flights near their property, but they shouldn’t be able to go in every 90 days and sue just because another jet went over their house,” Robinson said. “There’s all kind of structures--jails, freeways--that are needed by the people of the state but aren’t so nice to live next to, but people get to buy the property in the area more cheaply as well.”

In 1983, Deukmejian said the legislation’s provisions were “too restrictive on the rights of residents to sue airports for noise damage . . . (and) such problems can be reduced without drastically limiting public access to the courts.”

Deukmejian is inclined to veto the bill again, should it be passed by the Senate, said Kevin Brett, a spokesman for the governor.

While Schimmenti believes that the bill may pass, he said any complaints that have already been filed with the Port District by that time would be unaffected by the change in the law.

“It’s my interpretation that it would be unconstitutional to revoke the property rights of those residents after the suit has been filed,” he said.

In March, Schimmenti held a meeting sponsored by the Loma Portal Civic Club at which 50 residents agreed to be plaintiffs in the case.

“Since then, the word has been spreading in the neighborhood and we’ve gotten hundreds of others to file complaints as well,” he said.

A first group of 175 homeowners filed a complaint on May 2, and the Port District had 45 days to accept, reject or ignore the claims. The district took no action. Schimmenti said he plans to begin with the test case suit for about 25 plaintiffs, and said as many as 700 plaintiffs may eventually be involved.

“Typically jurors can only keep track of a limited number of plaintiffs, but if the test case wins, we’ll go ahead with the others then,” he said.

Schimmenti, who is charging no fee but who will receive one-third of the damages he collects for the homeowners, became involved in airport noise suits when his in Westchester was placed under a flight pattern coming out of Los Angeles International Airport.

“I filed a lawsuit myself, and then once the word got around a whole bunch of other people asked me to file for them,” Schimmenti said. Over the next 15 years more than $5 million in damages were collected from the airport by homeowners in the area, he said.