San Jose to pay flood victims $750,000
Residents’ suit against Santa Clara Valley Water District continues; trial set for May
In an effort to put one of the city’s worst natural disasters behind them, San Jose leaders have quietly approved a $750,000 settlement for a group of about 240 renters and property owners whose homes suffered significant damage in the devastating 2017 Coyote Creek flood.
The settlement comes nearly four years after residents sued the city, the Santa Clara Valley Water District and Santa Clara County, alleging that the entities failed to adequately warn them of the impending flood, knew of obstacles such as debris and sediment that blocked the flow of water through the creek channel and did little to prevent or reduce the damage it caused.
When Coyote Creek flooded in February 2017 following heavy atmospheric river storms, it was the worst flood San Jose had seen since 1997, forcing 14,000 people to evacuate and causing an estimated $100 million in damage.
Santa Clara County was later dismissed from the residents’ lawsuit. Meanwhile, the case against Santa Clara Valley Water District is still active with a trial date set for May 2 — and residents involved in the case are looking for an exponentially higher payout than what was brokered with the city.
“After nearly four years of litigation, we’re satisfied that the case with San Jose has resolved,” said Anne Kepner, the lead attorney representing the renters and homeowners. “And now, we’re preparing our case for trial as to the water district.”
The $750,000 settlement — unanimously approved by the City Council on Nov. 16 without any discussion — is set to be divided among the five plaintiff groups represented by different attorneys based on their proportional share of the total claims. However, residents involved say it may all go toward hiring expert witnesses in their case against the water district.
Sandra Moll, a resident of San Jose’s Naglee Park neighborhood, was displaced from her home for three weeks and suffered damages estimated in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” after 6 feet of water inundated her home the day of the flood.
Asked about the city’s settlement, Moll said that she was “glad to be moving forward and getting some conclusion to all of this.”
“I hope that because of the terms of this settlement, it will encourage the water district to settle also,” she said. “But I have my doubts that they will do that.”
Attempts to reach a joint settlement with the Santa Clara Valley Water District — also known as Valley Water — and the residents were unsuccessful. As a result, San Jose chose to move forward with its own agreement, though the city denies all allegations of negligence and wrongdoing, according to San Jose City Attorney Nora Frimann.
During the 2017 winter rains, Anderson Reservoir — the largest reservoir in Santa Clara County — overflowed and caused water to surge above the banks of Coyote Creek. As water flooded into downtown neighborhoods surrounding the creek, including Rock Springs, Naglee Park and the South Bay Mobile Home Park, some people had to be rescued from their homes by boat.
San Jose officials — who faced sharp criticism for not evacuating residents sooner — acknowledged that they did not do enough to properly notify residents who were potentially in harm’s way the day of the flood, which hit on the Tuesday after a long President’s Day weekend.
In a memo to the City Council this week, Frimann said that the city risked being held accountable for a much higher dollar amount if it did not settle the case before a trial.
“The settlement of $750,000 is reasonable given the cost and risks of further litigation,” Frimann wrote in the memo. “Plaintiff’s claimed economic property damages total approximately $12.6 million based on written discovery responses. … Even if the city was found nominally liable at trial, such a verdict could mean that the city was responsible for payment of the entire amount of the claimed economic damages.”
Despite a challenge from Valley Water, which argued that the city’s settlement was negotiated in bad faith and overstated the water district’s liability, Santa Clara County Superior Judge Sunil R. Kulkarni granted the deal and essentially stated if any liability was found, the water district would bear the brunt of it.
Kulkarni concluded that the main argument on behalf of the residents — that Anderson Dam was negligently managed — was solely directed at the water district. He also found that it would be “extremely difficult for plaintiffs to establish liability against the city” for the residents’ remaining two claims, alleging the city’s storm drain system was faulty and that the city failed to clear vegetation and debris from the creek — which the city only partly controls.
Valley Water is seeking to have the court decide the case without a trial. That request will be heard on Jan. 10.
Matt Keller, a spokesperson for Valley Water, said in a statement that it was “unfortunate that some have had to deal with the flooding and a long legal process” and that the company wants to end the suit “as quickly and fairly as possible.”
While the water district has not yet cut a deal with the 240 homeowners and renters involved in this case, in June 2019 the agency agreed to pay the claims of roughly 200 other families and individuals who suffered losses of $5,000 or less and were not represented by attorneys. Most of those claims were filed by low-income residents, many of whom were Vietnamese American immigrants who did not have insurance.
Since the flood of 2017, the city and water district have taken numerous steps aimed at preventing another disaster.
The water district in December 2017 installed an interim floodwall and embankment along Coyote Creek in the Rock Springs community. More recently, the district has been holding community meetings about its Coyote Creek Flood Protection Project, which lays out a plan for building improvements, such as berms and permanent floodwalls, along approximately 9 miles of Coyote Creek, between Montague Expressway and Tully Road.
For its part, the city hired a new emergency services director, purchased mobile loudspeakers and spent $46 million to help preserve 937 acres in Coyote Valley as open space for flood protection.
“The settlement doesn’t simply wrap up this matter for the city or for those many residents who suffered in 2017,” said Mayor Sam Liccardo. “We’ve got a lot more work to do to make our community more resilient to natural disasters. But the good news is that this tragedy really pushed us to bolster our emergency response capacity and prompted us to think differently about how we can better protect our community.”