BAY AREA QUAKE : State Supreme Court Is Jolted Out of S.F. Quarters

Tuesday’s massive earthquake has forced the state Supreme Court and the federal appeals court here to abandon damaged buildings and search frantically for temporary new quarters, officials said Friday.

As a result, the two suddenly homeless courts have been required to adopt unusual interim procedures when they attempt to resume operations on a highly limited basis Monday.

“The state (court) building will not be usable in the foreseeable future,” Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas said in a statement. “The court is developing contingency plans to relocate in San Francisco and to handle its usual workload as relocation and recovery proceed.”

Lucas said the justices would meet here early next week and announce a relocation plan “as soon as possible.” Meanwhile, no orders or decisions will be issued by the court. But legal documents may be filed by attorneys and others at the high court office in Los Angeles and at state Court of Appeal offices in Sacramento, Fresno and San Diego, he said.

There were no reports of serious quake-related injury to occupants of the 70-year-old, granite state court building, which is located in San Francisco’s civic center.

Ironically, the state court already had been scheduled to relocate temporarily starting next fall while its headquarters underwent a $150-million asbestos-removal and earthquake-reinforcement renovation.

The court building, like many public offices here, was closed immediately after the quake pending an inspection. Authorities said Friday that an older section of the building--where the justices’ chambers and courtroom are located--had suffered structural damage, making it unsafe.

A newer section, added in 1957, was found structurally sound, officials said. But the temblor caused the level of asbestos contamination in the atmosphere to exceed state safety standards, thus rendering the entire building uninhabitable, they said. And as a result, the high court, the state 1st District Court of Appeal and the administrative office of the courts and their nearly 400 employees--along with members of the state attorney general’s office and other tenants--will not be able to enter their offices in the near future.

Meanwhile, on the federal legal front, the five judges and more than 200 staff members of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals located in a venerable four-story structure that servived the 1906 quake also have been forced out for an undetermined period, a court official disclosed.

“The preliminary reading is that the building is structurally sound but it is still unsafe because of the possibility of falling plaster,” said Cathy A. Catterson, the circuit court clerk. “We’ve been told to get out.”

“We’re looking for alternatives--both short-term and long-term--but we won’t know until there’s been further analysis where we’ll go or how long it will be,” she said.

Catterson said that attorneys here would be granted additional time to file court papers and that emergency matters will be directed to the court’s branch office in Pasadena. The other 24 judges located throughout the sprawling, nine-state 9th Circuit will continue with business as usual. An attempt will be made to issue court opinions here, as well as in Pasadena and Seattle. But as of Friday afternoon, it was uncertain where and how such opinions would be issued, she said.

The closing of the state building also means the abrupt removal of more than 350 lawyers and other members of the San Francisco branch of the state attorney general’s office. Like high court personnel, attorney general staff members were located in both the older and newer sections of the building.

“I suppose someday the new section will be usable, perhaps after the asbestos dust settles,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Alan B. Ashby. “But it’s going to be a while before we can make any use of the building at all.”

The state Legislature had appropriated funds to temporarily house the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeal at a new office complex in downtown San Francisco when renovation was to begin in October, 1990. But the lawmakers had agreed only to study the problem of what to do with the attorney general’s office and other tenants, causing considerable uneasiness among those work forces.

“Studies have already shown that the building was unsafe,” said Ashby. “That was a considerable source of bitterness within our office. It was a miracle that the building didn’t go down in the earthquake.”