Insurers to Pay for Quake Repairs at Courthouse

Almost 2 1/2 years after the Northridge earthquake wrecked the San Fernando Courthouse, the county and a group of insurance companies have settled a lawsuit over who will pay for most of the damage.

Under terms of the agreement--which the Board of Supervisors is expected to approve Tuesday--four of the six insurance companies that are defendants in the county’s lawsuit have agreed to pay $17 million for repairs and other expenses, county officials said.

The insurance firms had originally refused to pay the county’s claims because they maintained that much of the damage to the courthouse had existed before the temblor struck on Jan. 17, 1994.

The county hopes to start the repair work on the 13-year-old building in mid-September and finish by March 10, 1997, according to a county public works spokeswoman.

When the Spanish mission-style courthouse was red-tagged after the earthquake and the superior and municipal courts it housed were transferred to the Van Nuys Courthouse, the disruption created a ripple effect in the city of San Fernando and the San Fernando Valley area’s justice system as well .

“We’re going to open up a bottle of champagne,” said San Fernando Mayor Rosa Chacon when she learned of the proposed settlement.

Added Bruce Cohen, president of the San Fernando Chamber of Commerce: “We really look forward to the next step, which is getting it repaired and open, because there are a lot of businesses barely hanging on.”

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Among the impacts: Many businesses in San Fernando have folded or relocated after their regular customers--jurors and court personnel--stopped visiting; San Fernando police officers are required to travel to Van Nuys to testify in trials, leaving them less time to patrol their own city; and space at the Van Nuys Courthouse has gotten so tight that some civil trials are held in trailers.

Judge William A. MacLaughlin, supervising judge of the north Valley branch of the county court system, said court staff would also welcome the news that they are a step closer to returning to their former digs.

“If this settlement is approved and they begin the repairs, all the judges in the Valley will be greatly pleased,” said MacLaughlin. “With the closing [of the San Fernando Courthouse], all the other facilities have been greatly taxed.”

MacLaughlin also said that because of the overcrowding, earthquake repairs at the Van Nuys Courthouse have been delayed because there is simply “nowhere to move the judges.”

County officials said that the settlement proposal represents a victory for the county, which has been mired in a nasty debate with insurance companies--and for a time, the Federal Emergency Management Agency--over what parts of the courthouse the Northridge quake had damaged and who was responsible for paying for it.

“This is great news for the judges who had to work under terrible and crowded conditions,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. “And great news for the city of San Fernando, which has lost a good deal of the business base in the area because of the [courthouse] closure.”

A representative of Maxson Young Associates Inc., the adjuster for the insurance companies, did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday.

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County officials estimate that they are in a $19.8-million hole on the courthouse--including $13.3 million to fix the deep cracks in support columns and the buckling roof of the block-long building. The other $6.5 million is needed for bond payments that the county has continued to make on the building.

Yaroslavsky expressed confidence that the two holdout insurance companies would settle in the near future and that the county would recover the full $19.8 million. He said the break in the dispute over the repair funds came after the county filed a lawsuit against the insurance companies in February, accusing them of not bargaining in good faith.

“I’m sorry we had to take the expense to file a lawsuit, but with the public attention that got, it forced them to be more serious,” Yaroslavsky said.