Iconic music festival sues SF over flooding

Stern Grove Festival Association sued the City and County of San Francisco on Friday, claiming that negligent maintenance of a water pipe in 2021 caused the company to cancel its season finale show that was set to be its "most profitable" that year.

Organizers were forced to cancel a concert headlined by popular Bay Area rapper Too Short due to the flood and now wants San Francisco to pay more than the $335,000 in lost revenue.

The festival has held free concerts throughout the summer in a unique, wooded amphitheater since 1938. It has hosted a swath of famous musicians including the Isley Brothers, Anita Baker, Smokey Robinson, and Randy Newman. Stern Grove Festival Association v. City and County of San Francisco et al., CGC-24-617454 (S.F. Super. Ct. filed Aug. 23, 2024).

Neither City Attorney David Chiu nor the city's media contacts could be reached for comment Monday.

Stern Grove eventually reopened in time for its 2022 season of concerts, but the repair costs were a point of controversy as the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission was forced to request an extra $16 million from the county Board of Supervisors in March 2022 according to government documents.

The plaintiff's attorney, Micah D. Nash of Delahunty & Edelman LLP, filed the lawsuit as an inverse condemnation action and claimed that the ruptured pipe dumped 700,000 gallons of water on the site. He detailed the sequence of events and the damage allegedly done.

"Stern Grove is informed and believes that the pipe rupture caused over 700,000 gallons of water to enter the land of Stern Grove," Nash wrote. "The flooding also caused a landslide of water and debris which flowed downhill from street level which deposited large amounts of water and soil into the concert meadow and into the buildings occupied by the association. This event caused significant damage to the property of the Association. In addition, the flooding event caused the Stern Grove property to be unusable for an extended period which forced the Association to cancel its final, and most profitable, concert of the 2021 season."