Las Galinas Valley Sanitary District v. Joseph Silveira, et al.
Published: Jul. 15, 2000 | Result Date: May 15, 2000 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: 174381 Verdict – $6,000,000
Judge
Court
Marin Superior
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Daniel A. Crawford
(Crawford Law Group)
Defendant
Experts
Plaintiff
Scott Davidson
(technical)
Patrick Idiart
(technical)
Defendant
Peter Krasnoff
(technical)
Thomas Card
(technical)
Lynn Sedway
(technical)
Scott Hochstrasser
(technical)
Irv Schwartz
(technical)
Arthur H. Gimmy
(technical)
Facts
A Marin County dairy rancher recently won a $14.6 million verdict against the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District in a condemnation case under the representation of lead counsel John C. Murphy, Douglas J. Maloney, Rick E. Rayl and Michael G. Thornton of San FranciscoÆs Nossaman, Guthner, Knox & Elliott along with co-counsel Ronald A. Silveira of San Rafael-based law firm McNeil, Silveira & Rice. Following the juryÆs high
valuation of the land, the public entity has filed notice of abandonment of the case with the court. The Silveira family, the defendants and cross-complainants in this case, are dairy farmers who have lived and worked in Marin County for nearly 100 years. The family and
their 344-acre dairy ranch are well-known in the community because the land is a local landmark abutting Highway 101 near San Rafael. Tony Silveira, the family patriarch, resisted development of the land, despite offers as high as $65 million. The Silveira family
was distraught when the local sanitary district, located next to the Silveira land, wanted to condemn 82.6 acres of the property to expand its sewage treatment facilities. The Silveiras also maintain that the 82.6 acres involved in the condemnation made the remaining acreage less desirable for later development."The public entity exuded the kind of arrogance that governments tend to have in eminent domain cases. The jurors got mad at a sewer district robbing the Silveira family of the land that they had nurtured for 100 years," declares Murphy.The punch line is that the sewer district is now stating that it will
abandon the whole development project altogether."They shouldnÆt have brought the suit
unless they were willing to pay," states Maloney.Counsel for the district was out of town and unavailable for comment at press time. The Silveira familyÆs attorneys had suggested to the sanitation district early in the lawsuit that they cap their tanks to control odor
because most modern sewer plants use them.Instead, the district condemned the SilveiraÆs land to create an odor "buffer zone." Now, however, with the cost of actually
compensating the SilveiraÆs so high, the district likely will purchase the caps, Maloney believes."On the one hand, the district claimed they needed to condemn the land in case [the Silveiras] ever decided to build homes on it. The district would later be prompted to sue to get the homes out before the homeowners sued the district for nuisance abatement, yet [the district] was only willing to pay the value of unused farm land [and not developed
land]. That was the hypocrisy," says Maloney.The sewer districtÆs position was that the 82.6 acres were mostly wetlands that could not be developed. According to Murphy, the problem was that the districtÆs argument was true.But even if the 82.6 acres that the sewer
district wanted to condemn were not the best place to develop a community of homes or businesses, it was still an integral part of the Silveira land as a whole. Planning agencies would give the Silveira land more units of value as long as the 82.6 acres were included in the parcel."We had some emotional appeal based on our long stewardship of the land but we had to acknowledge that the land the district wanted to condemn wasnÆt the most valuable [portion]. The experts established that you canÆt just look at 25 percent of a parcel and value that, but rather, you had to look at it as a whole. That was the challenge of the case," Murphy explains.Marin County is known to be an environmentally conscious area, so one of the arguments the sewer district made at trial was that the family would never be able to develop the land because of the political climate in the county against
development.
Settlement Discussions
At the settlement conference, the district offered to settle for $1.5 million the Silveiras offered to settle for $10 million. The jury awarded the Silveiras $6 million for the property and $8,463,000 in severance damages for damage to the remaining portion of the Silveira Ranch. The jury also awarded $200,000 for equipment on the land.
Other Information
However, the Silveira familyÆs counsel were able to show otherwise by pointing to a resolution that was adopted by joint city officials approving responsible development on the property, meaning low-density development of the land overall. The turning point during the trial occurred after the district had just presented an argument using a large display board of the "Interim General Plan Designation" that showed that the most density credit the property would ever be allowed was 1 unit for every 100 acres. If that were, in fact, the case, then the land really would not be worth very much.To defuse the districtÆs argument, Murphy took a big, red marker and circled the one thing the district hadnÆt focused on, the word "interim" in the title of the display board, to remind the court that property is not to be valued by looking at what is currently in place but rather at its potential."I thought the attorney was going to come running up to wrestle the marker out of my hand when he realized what I was going to do," Murphy says."The verdict proved that Tony SilveiraÆs belief in the potential of his property was true and it proved to me that the system works," says Murphy."The Fifth Amendment protection against government takings can be enforced by juries because public agencies, when they overreach, are going to be punished," he adds.A total of 15 witnesses testified at trial. A real estate economist, a planner, a civil engineer and two sewage district experts, one of whom is the worldÆs foremost authority on odor, were just some of the experts who testified."IÆm a strong believer in getting teams of experts together with just one appraiser and the other experts lending credibility to the appraiser," says Murphy.Murphy believes that their credibility had a great impact on the jury."My closing statement ended, æYouÆve sat here now for almost three weeks. Which side do you think put together the most plausible, comprehensive and most credible story of whatÆs going to happen to the property?Æ" recounts Murphy.The juryÆs answer came in one of the largest jury verdicts ever awarded in Marin County."The jury awarded us almost the exact amount we requested for the real estate - $6 million," Thornton states. "The jury totally disregarded the districtÆs appraisal testimony."The jury also awarded the Silveiras $8,463,000 in severance damages, or damages to the remaining 75 percent of the Silveira ranch, and $200,000 for the equipment on the land. After trial, some of the jurors indicated that they wanted to award the Silveira family even more money, according to counsel.The sanitation district will be required to pay all attorney and expert fees, in addition to possibly paying a premium on the litigation expenses. The judge could award counsel two or three times what their litigation expenses actually were.According to Murphy, the case is unusual because the districtÆs offers were so low. The most the sanitation district ever offered before litigation was $650,000 and then 30 days before trial offered $1.5 million, about 10 percent of the final verdict."They never participated meaningfully in settlement negotiations," states Murphy."This verdict is important in light of the fact that property owners often feel they have few alternatives when the government wants to take their land by eminent domain," Murphy notes.
Length
2.5 weeks
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