La Vina Suit Dismissed After Group Fails to Pay Fees

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by opponents of the hillside La Vina project after the group was unable to meet a requirement that it pay $55,000 in attorneys’ fees to compensate for delays stemming from its suit.

The opponents say they will appeal Wednesday’s ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien that, because of their failure to meet a Nov. 16 court-imposed deadline to file documents related to the case, they should pay attorneys’ fees to the developers and to Los Angeles County.

O’Brien ruled on Jan. 15 that to proceed with its lawsuit, the group would have to raise $55,000 by Jan. 26.

Friends of La Vina, the principal opponents of the 272-home project on the former site of a tuberculosis sanatorium, had been able to raise only a small portion of the required amount in the past week and a half, said Adolfo Miralles, chairman of the group.

“We’re not discouraged,” Miralles said. “Just the opposite. We think we have a good chance on appeal. Nobody can find any precedent for this.”

The La Vina project was approved by the county Board of Supervisors in October.

A spokesman for the developers said Wednesday that they could break ground on the project by midsummer.

“After all the years of work, the judge recognized the lawsuit for what it was: a blatant effort to stall the progress of a development that’s needed desperately in a community which has suffered from 30 years of disinvestment,” said Tim Cantwell, of the Pasadena firm of Cantwell-Anderson Inc.

Cantwell’s firm has joined with Southwest Diversified in the project, which will cover 220 acres at the north end of Lincoln Avenue.

The Friends of La Vina, which claims that the project will decimate a pristine natural setting on national forest land, issued a statement attacking the ruling.

“Judge O’Brien’s actions may have a lasting negative effect on the ability of homeowners and environmental groups to challenge issues affecting the public interest,” the statement said. “The private citizen may lose the right to be heard unless able to pay excessive assessments.”

Dean Dennis, an attorney representing the county in the case, said there were precedents for O’Brien’s action.

The judge could have thrown the case out Jan. 15, he said.

“Instead of dismissing it then, he threw them (the Friends of La Vina) a lifeline,” Dennis said. “He said, ‘I won’t dismiss the case if you pay the other side’s legal fees.’ It wasn’t something that was arbitrary or irrational.”