Rulings overturned in SR contaminated wells case
Sanctions against attorneys for Clover Drive residents tossed; OCLI again defendant
Published: Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 3:42 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, July 26, 2008 at 6:50 a.m.
A state appeals court has overturned much of a Sonoma County judge's ruling in a complex water contamination lawsuit filed by 32 Santa Rosa residents who say their wells were tainted with potentially cancer-causing chemicals in the 1990s.
The unanimous opinion, issued late Thursday by a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, also reverses huge monetary sanctions against the plaintiffs' attorneys and sends the case back to Sonoma County Superior Court for further proceedings.
It also revives the case against one of the defendants, the former Optical Coating Laboratory Inc., which is now owned by JDSU in San Jose.
In 2006, two weeks into the trial -- and after five years of legal wrangling -- Judge Allan Hardcastle declared a mistrial, slapped the plaintiffs' attorneys with $2 million in sanctions and released OCLI and the state water board from the case.
In his strongly worded ruling, Hardcastle took the plaintiffs' attorneys to task, saying they repeatedly violated his orders not to raise certain issues he'd already deemed off-limits.
Hardcastle held the attorneys, Charlie Cochran of Santa Rosa and Keith Robinson and Joseph Gonzalez, both of Westlake Village in Los Angeles County, in contempt and held them liable for the defendants' legal fees and costs, a total of more than $2 million.
The contempt ruling was previously overturned, but Thursday's opinion also reversed the extraordinary monetary sanctions.
"I feel vindicated by the appellate court," Cochran said Friday. "The reversal of the sanctions is very important, not just for us but for the whole plaintiffs' bar. You're going to lose your whole livelihood over asking a question? That's what you're supposed to do."
The local attorney for OCLI, Steve Mitchell, said the ruling essentially puts the case back where it was two years ago.
"The court of appeal made no findings whatsoever that OCLI was liable in any way for the contamination or for the plaintiffs' damages," he said. "In fact, the decision specifically stated that the case against OCLI was circumstantial at best and was 'not particularly strong.' "
The defendants' attorneys can appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court before any further action is taken, although Mitchell said that decision hadn't been made.
The case began in 2001, when 32 people who relied on water from wells in a county pocket near College Avenue and Clover Drive sued the state water board, OCLI and Union Pacific Railroad after 29 private wells were discovered in 1999 to be contaminated with TCE and PCE -- trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene. Both chemicals are suspected of causing cancer.
The plaintiffs claimed the companies were responsible for the contamination and that the state water board mishandled the hazard by failing to properly notify the community. They sought $600 million in damages.
Three other defendants named in the original lawsuit settled before trial. The city of Santa Rosa paid $1.5 million and Sonoma County paid $750,000, both settlements coming from insurance. The owners of a nearby property where a dry cleaning business once operated settled for about $400,000.
In the 1st District's 42-page ruling, the judges found no legal basis for Hardcastle's sanctions for attorney fees, costs and expert witness fees against Cochran, Robinson and Gonzalez.
They upheld Hardcastle's ruling releasing the state water board from the suit and his award of $439,535 in expert witness fees to the state.
The ruling also reinstates the suit against OCLI, which rejoins Union Pacific Railroad as defendants.
Union Pacific owned a 9½- acre parcel at 99 Frances St. about a half-mile northeast of the West College Avenue neighborhood. Beginning in 1967, that property and an adjacent parcel, 1143 Briggs Ave., had been leased to a succession of scrap metal recyclers and auto wreckers.
Both sites were contaminated with TCE, PCE and other toxic chemicals. The plaintiffs allege that those contaminants seeped into the ground water beneath the sites and migrated into their wells, causing a variety of health problems.
OCLI had facilities in Santa Rosa since the 1950s, developing thin-film coatings for government and industry. The plaintiffs claim OCLI disposed of more than 300 drums containing toxic wastes, including PCE and TCE, at the Frances Street site.
OCLI attorneys have argued that several high-tech companies use similar chemicals and that there is no evidence that any chemical from OCLI ever ended up at the Union Pacific lot.
Railroad lawyers acknowledged their land was contaminated with TCE, but said the Clover Drive wells were contaminated with PCE, a chemical commonly used in dry cleaning.
All of the affected residents have since been connected to the city's water system.
You can reach Staff Writer L.A. Carter at 568-5312 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com.
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