Homeless Center Gets $15.8-Million Court Judgment

The St. Vincent de Paul Joan Kroc Center for the Homeless is due $15.8 million in damages from soil contamination caused by its neighbor, California Linen Supply, a San Diego Superior Court judge has ruled.

Judge James R. Milliken announced the award in a decision issued Wednesday. He provided for even more money than the $14.6 million a jury had awarded the homeless center last January after the first trial in the case.

Milliken set aside the $14.6-million verdict, however, after ruling that a surprise witness might have affected the judgment. He presided over the new trial, which began Aug. 2, without a jury.

The suit, brought against California Linen and its parent company, Service Control Corp. West, alleged soil contamination caused by dry-cleaning fluids that seeped from underground tanks at the property next to the Imperial Avenue shelter, said the shelter’s lawyer, Brian D. Monaghan.

Attorneys for California Linen contended at the trial that no dry-cleaning has taken place at the site since 1985, when Service Control bought California Linen, according to Monaghan. One of the defense attorneys, William N. Kammer, did not return a call, and another, Michael S. Tracy, declined Thursday to comment on the case.

Monaghan said that most of the award would be used to clean the property. But he said it could be a long time before the shelter actually receives the cash.

“First of all, it has to be collected, which often is as big a problem as getting the verdict,” he said. “They have insurance. There are a number of carriers. But they have all denied coverage. So the next battle will either be in the appellate courts or against the insurance companies, or both. It will be years.”