FOUNTAIN VALLEY : $2.49 Million Ends Trailer Park Suit

After years of legal battles, the owners of Fountain Valley Mobile Estates have agreed to a $2.49-million settlement of a suit filed by more than 100 residents who claim that the park wasn’t maintained and that rents were increased unfairly.

Checks were sent this week to 123 residents of the park who were among the remaining plaintiffs in the suit, said David Semelsberger, their attorney.

“These people were primarily over the age of 70, and many were on a fixed income,” Semelsberger said. “They were more likely to suffer emotional distress.”

In addition to the money, the settlement provides for a 6% cap on rent increases annually over the next two years.

Semelsberger, who said he has represented residents in dozens of similar cases in the state, said the action was “one of the best settlements we’ve had” because, in addition to the money, it includes the rent curbs.

Residents filed the suit in 1986, alleging that owners of the park had breached an agreement made six years earlier that limited rent increases to the yearly rise in the consumer price index, Semelsberger said. In 1985, rents were hiked $50 twice, which made the increase 10% higher than the rise in the index, he said.

Some residents complained that rents had doubled in the past 10 years and now range from $500 to $600 a month, he said.

“We’re not totally satisfied, but we’re comfortable that we’ve gone as far as we can go with the case,” said Dale Evans, 61, who lives in the park and is the chairman of the residents’ legal committee.

Robert Olander and Fred Nyquist, the principal owners of the park, directed questions about the settlement to the Orange County Manufactured Housing Educational Trust, an industry group representing park owners.

Vickie Talley, the executive director of the group, said the settlement “doesn’t admit liability for either side.”

Talley said that Olander and Nyquist were certain that they could prevail if the case had gone to trial but didn’t want a legal battle that could have gone on for three or four more years.

The suit also alleged that the owners failed to repair electrical, gas and sewer systems and that roads and lighting in the park were not kept up, Semelsberger said. He said that since the suit was filed, owners have put money into the upkeep of the park.

But Paul Pirilla, the owners’ attorney, denied that the suit caused them to improve maintenance, saying it always has been adequate and that he considers the area “one of the most beautiful mobile home parks in Orange County.”

After filing the suit, residents refused to pay for increases above the consumer price index. Instead, their money was put into a trust that totaled $391,000.

Semelsberger said the trust money went to the residents. But Pirilla said that the trust fund will go to the owners of the park and that no such agreement was made in the settlement.