Worth of a Day at the Beach Is Key to Trial

They each remember the moment they heard the news. It was Feb. 7, 1990, and an oil tanker had run aground off Huntington Beach in a disaster that would spill as much as 400,000 gallons of Alaskan crude oil, blackening beaches and killing birds.

The beaches were cleaned up long ago, but for the two attorneys the hardest part has just begun.

For 7 1/2 years, the ill-fated tanker American Trader has dominated their professional lives--Sylvia Cano Hale as a deputy attorney general for California, David E.R. Woolley on behalf of the tanker’s owner and operator.

Now the lawyers are sparring in a Santa Ana courtroom, where Southern California’s worst oil spill in 20 years is the focus of a high-stakes civil trial in Orange County Superior Court.

State and local governments are seeking $20 million in damages from the tanker’s owner in a trial that could run until December.

The case raises significant legal issues about how to put a price tag on an oil spill’s effects--specifically, how to calculate the cost to the public of a lost day at the beach.

For Hale and Woolley and their teams, the trial will test years of research, court motions and legal twists and turns.

“It’s been a heck of a lot of hand wringing and a heck of a lot of headaches,” Hale said. “But this case, I think, will really set important law.”

Woolley, who plans to challenge the validity of the state’s method of calculating the loss of recreational use, agreed that the case will deal with groundbreaking issues.

The spill created national news in 1990 when it fouled 15 miles of beaches and killed more than 1,000 birds. But in recent years it had fallen off the public radar screen, particularly after BP America--which owned the oil--and other companies paid $11 million in settlements in 1995 and 1996.

As the trial got underway last week, however, the events of that February day were vividly recalled as testimony began and slides of yellow-suited workers cleaning beaches were projected onto a video screen. Jurors sat facing a chart suspended from the ceiling, showing three views of the tanker.

For those with ties to the spill, the trial is triggering a flood of facts and memories.

For Hale, the case started with a phone call from Sacramento. It was her boss, briefing her on the oil spill and asking her to take on the legal battle that was sure to ensue.

Hale left her downtown Los Angeles office and headed to Huntington Beach. There, crowds of sightseers had gathered on the shore to watch the failing ship.

She sought out her clients, state Department of Fish and Game wardens and parks employees, and told them: “We need to start to collect evidence.”

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Woolley got a call that day as well. A Long Beach-based attorney who specializes in maritime and international law, he represents the tanker’s owner and operator, Attransco, formerly known as American Trading Transportation Co.

Woolley defends the ship’s crew, saying, “These folks don’t want to spill oil. They take their jobs very seriously.”

For both lawyers, the case has been demanding.

Woolley estimates that it has consumed 50% to 70% of his time. “Seven years of one’s life is a huge span,” he said.

Hale’s son, 5 when she was assigned to the American Trader case, is now almost 13--”and he knows a lot about oil spills.”

She has worked virtually full time on the spill litigation, which she calls one of the longest environmental cases tackled by the state.

Fees and costs to the state have exceeded $2 million. Said Woolley: “It’s very difficult for a business company to afford the legal fees for something like this.”

“I think it’s going to set a value on loss of beach recreation,” Hale said. People can set value on damage to creatures like sea otters, she said. “But when you can’t go to the beach, what’s that worth?”

The plaintiffs in the case are California, Orange County, Newport Beach, Huntington Beach and other public agencies.

Since 1994, Hale and her office have been assisted by a private Los Angeles law firm, Hedges & Caldwell, which represented Torrance in a lawsuit and its 1990 pretrial settlement against Mobil Oil Corp., which centered on problems at the Torrance refinery.

Firm attorney Michael Leslie, who presented the state’s opening statement Tuesday, says that although loss-of-use issues have been present in many environmental cases, this is one of the first cases nationally that’s gone to trial.

One of the key issues will be the cost of lost recreation time at several Orange County beaches, which were closed for five weeks during the cleanup.

A state expert has said that a conservative value is $15 a day, per person. Separate costs have been put on loss of surfing and boating.

Those calculations have led the state to seek $12 million in damages representing loss of recreational use. The state is seeking another $8 million in civil liabilities for discharge of oil into water.

While not conceding the case, Woolley says that if the tanker’s owners were to pay damages for loss of beach use, it should be only $6 a day. And he thinks $1.2 million--not $12 million--is a more reasonable figure for damages.

Outside court, Woolley said the state is dealing with “utterly hypothetical ideas and damages.” If people cannot go to the beach, they are enterprising enough to find alternatives, he said.

The two sides have provided starkly different views of the spill, what caused it and even how much oil was involved.

A key question promises to be how much was known about ocean depths that day when Capt. A.R. LeWare attempted to berth his vessel at an offshore terminal.

The state contends that the tanker’s captain ignored crucial data about depths. But Woolley maintains that the captain was given incorrect information by a maritime pilot.

The state put the amount of oil spilled at 400,000 gallons. Woolley contends that new calculations put it at about half that amount, or 208,000 gallons.

But the matter of loss of use promises to be the central question, and is expected to attract attention from industry and environmental groups alike.