Court: City could be liable in slide damage

Seattle Times staff reporter

The city of Seattle can be held liable when landslides damage homes, an appeals court has ruled.

Nearly three years after land near their homes gave way, making them uninhabitable, the owners of property in the 1500 block of Lakeview Boulevard East can sue the city for their losses, a three-judge State Court of Appeals panel ruled last month.

The appeals court ruled that a covenant used by Seattle and many other cities and counties, to claim exemption from liability when slides damage homes, was unenforceable.

The ruling opens the way for the property owners to take the city to trial. It also makes it possible for more local governments to be sued for issuing building permits in slide- or flood-prone areas.

The ruling could have a chilling effect on cities' willingness to grant permits on sloping properties bought for the views at a time when view property is scarce.

Assistant City Attorney Marcia Nelson said the ruling removes one of the city's defenses in landslide cases. She said it's likely the city will ask the state Supreme Court to review the case.

To Penny Fukui and her former neighbors, Robert Ferguson, Douglas Taylor, Bruce Curnutt and Bruce McLaughlin, the Court of Appeals decision was only partially good news.

The court rejected their attempt to hold the developer, architect and geo-technical consultants responsible, citing 1969 legislation that holds those in the construction industry exempt from liability six years after a project's completion.

Rand Koler, the attorney for the homeowners, has asked the state Supreme Court to review a case from the mid-1970s pertaining to that legislation.

Under the legislation, a consumer has more protection from product defects in buying a watch than in buying a house, Koler said.

Built in 1990, the stucco-sided homes were advertised as having foundations set on pilings planted deep into the hillside to reduce potential damage from slides, Koler said.

In 1991, the Fukuis purchased their once elegant, three-story town house - with a view of the Olympics, Lake Union and Queen Anne Hill - expecting to retire there.

Then on Jan. 3, 1997, they fled the house when a neighbor pounded on the door, telling them to evacuate because the three town houses were sliding.

It was later - when the property owners' insurance companies refused to pay - that they learned of the covenant, which the developer was required to file with the deed to the land, Koler said.

Published correction date: 10/06/2000 - The photo caption should have said the landslide was nearly four years ago. The time since the landslide was incorrect in this story.