Judge Denies Retrial Over Land Seized for Jail : Courts: Decision leaves the county to deal with the $55.6-million verdict awarded by a jury.

Creating the time and the incentive for settlement talks, a Superior Court judge refused Monday to order a new trial in a case in which San Diego County was hit with a $55.6-million verdict for land it seized from developer Roque de la Fuente II to build the East Mesa jail.

Judge Jeffrey T. Miller sharply rejected a series of claims by the county urging a new trial, including contentions that the verdict is excessive and that jurors sought to punish the county with the whopping sum. He said there was no merit to those--and several other--claims.

Miller held off, however, from concluding formally at a lengthy hearing Monday that the jury clearly could not have come to any other verdict, the legal test for a new trial. He said he simply wanted time to think about it.

Attorneys for De la Fuente said the judge had until Jan. 7 to make up his mind. De la Fuente said that Miller created not only a ready-made time frame for settlement talks but--having essentially shot down the request for a new trial--the incentive for the county to come to terms.

“I think, basically, he’s giving the county one more opportunity to sit down and negotiate,” De la Fuente said.

He said he was amenable to a deal. “I’ve been willing to negotiate since 1985,” he said.

Michael Thorsnes, one of De la Fuente’s attorneys, said there have been only preliminary talks with county officials since the Sept. 28 jury verdict. Thorsnes declined, however, to say what settlement sum would be acceptable to De la Fuente.

“We didn’t try this case in the papers and we’re not going to settle it in the papers,” Thorsnes said.

Miller also was due Monday to take up a request from De la Fuente’s attorneys for $15.4 million in fees, which--as the winning side--the lawyers are seeking from the county on top of the $55.6 million. That request was put off, at the county’s request, until Jan. 14, Miller said.

With interest on the $55.6 million accumulating daily, as it has been since the county seized the 525 acres from De la Fuente in 1987, and adding in the lawyers’ fees, De la Fuente and his attorneys are believed to be asking for a total of $80 million from the financially strapped county. Supervisors have said the county does not have that kind of cash.

County officials have envisioned the East Mesa facility--near the U.S.-Mexico border, about seven miles east of Interstate 805--as the central ingredient in solving a longstanding jail crowding problem. The county’s six jails hold hundreds more inmates than the state recommends.

The East Mesa site is immediately east of a state prison--built on land that also had been owned by the De la Fuente family. The family owns real estate, car dealerships and a bank.

De la Fuente wanted $10.24 million to settle the case before trial. The county’s final pretrial offer was $7.5 million.

During the trial, the county claimed that the East Mesa site would be best used for residential housing. The jury, however, bought De la Fuente’s contention that it was a remarkable plot ideally suited for a jail, returning the $55.6 million verdict.

Beginning in 1985, the county and De la Fuente began negotiations for the family to sell the site. Unable to reach agreement, the county condemned the parcel on Sept. 16, 1987, through its eminent domain powers.

The jury had to decide the “highest and best” use of the land--defined as one that produces the most economic benefit--and, then, the value of that land for that use. It decided the site was best suited for a jail and put the fair market value at $55.6 million.

“I am confident the jury completely rejected the county’s position with regard to the ‘highest and best’ use (of the land), and rightly so,” Miller said Monday. He said the county’s notion--that prospective home buyers would buy two-acre estates overlooking the state prison--was unrealistic.

He also said there was no reason to believe the jury made its award out of sympathy, passion or prejudice.

The county made several other claims in arguing that the $55.6-million verdict was improper, suggesting that the jury was biased, that De la Fuente’s attorneys had access to a secret county juror computer and that Miller allowed the developer’s lawyers to discuss irrelevant issues.

Rejecting all those claims, Miller said the county provided no evidence to back up any of them.