Flood victims file $100 million suit against city of San Diego

Hundreds of property owners in San Diego’s southeastern neighborhoods who were flooded out during the torrential January storms filed a $100 million lawsuit against the city, contending years of neglect and poor maintenance of stormwater management systems damaged their property.

The massive lawsuit has nearly 300 individual plaintiffs, representing homeowners, renters and businesses across Southcrest, Mountain View, Logan Heights, Encanto and other neighborhoods that are in the Chollas Creek watershed.

All had property damaged from an intense storm that flooded the area the morning of Jan. 22, when the creek overflowed and backed up, sending up to 5 feet of water churning through residential neighborhoods and hundreds of homes.

Storm drains were also overwhelmed and contributed to water turning quiet residential streets into tributaries of the creek for several hours.

Some residents barely got out before the waters invaded their homes, while others were stranded for hours, some seeking refuge atop roofs.

An estimated 1,000 people in the city were forced to flee their homes, with many scrambling for temporary lodging in motels and hotels, waiting for insurance claims to be processed and repair work on flooded homes to get underway. Many residents, including renters, lost everything in the flood and have to start over.

The lawsuit says that the city knew for years that its stormwater control system of pipes, drains and flood channels was severely underfunded, but did nothing to raise revenue needed for at least two decades.

It also contains that despite years of reports warning that the system was not being maintained adequately, the city did not take the necessary steps to avoid flooding and damage to property.

These failures meant the city “created a destructive state of affairs and absolutely failed its residents,” according to the complaint filed Monday in San Diego Superior Court.

“The heart of the complaint is that the city knew Chollas Creek was clogged and had been clogged and that because it was clogged, it could contribute to flooding,” said Evan Walker, one of the lawyers who filed the suit. “And that’s exactly what we saw on January 22nd.”

City officials have said that the storm was highly unusual — a “1,000 year storm.” That means there is a 1 in 1,000 chance of such a storm happening in any given year.

While acknowledging the chronic underfunding of the system city officials also said in the days before the storm they tried to prepare by inspecting storm drains and sending out extra crews in areas that were historically prone to floods.

A spokesperson for City Attorney Mara Elliott said the city has not yet been served with the suit, and declined to comment.

The lawsuit is a mass tort action, which is different from a class action. A mass tort contains many people were damaged in different ways by one act or event. A class action, in contrast, contains many people were damaged in the same way from one cause, Walker said.

The city’s longstanding knowledge of the deficiencies in its stormwater system are the grounds for the leading claim in the suit of inverse condemnation.

Unlike an eminent domain case — in which a government entity takes steps to take over private property for public benefit and compensates the owner — inverse condemnation contends a government has taken or damaged private property by actions that decreased the value of the land, without paying the owner.

In this suit, the residents allege those steps include not funding the system adequately and not maintaining the system as it is required to avoid flooding and other damage to private property.

The city also faces claims of negligence, maintaining a dangerous condition of public property and trespass.

The lawsuit includes numerous photos of damage to homes and property, succinctly described as “unbelievable.” Walker has met with scores from residents since the storm, many of whom filed claims with the city and signed on to the litigation.

Walker successfully sued the city on behalf of a half-dozen homeowners around Beta Street in Southcrest following a December 2018 storm and flooding.

That suit dealt with many of the same issues of poor maintenance of the creek channel and a decrepit stormwater system and eventually settled for $209,000. This time things are different, he said and poses a greater challenge to the city.

“The damage we saw from January 22nd was so catastrophic and so widespread and just so terrible that — it’s just magnitudes of loss greater,” he said. “And so people had to do something about it. Secondly, I think it’s easier for the city to ignore half a dozen homeowners, like in the 2019 lawsuit, than it is to ignore over 300.”

The devastating flood has spurred the city to consider addressing the underfunding problem.

City Council President Sean Elo-Rivera is seeking to put a parcel tax measure on the November ballot that would increase the fee property owners pay for the stormwater system.

That fee has not been increased since the mid-1990s. The current fee levies a tax of 95 cents per month per home. Studies have shown that it is far below other California cities.

While there has been no decision on how much to increase the fee, proposals discussed at a council Rules Committee meeting in April ranged from a low of $74 million per year to a high of $474 million.

The city has said it needs $1.6 billion in upgrades for the flood control system.