If the city of Eureka didn’t have enough to worry about at the Devil’s Playground behind the Bayshore Mall, a recent jury verdict and settlement underscore that the graffiti-covered concrete structure is one massive liability concern.
The city recently settled a civil suit brought in 2012, agreeing to pay out $400,000 to a local woman who stepped into a hole and fell at the Devil’s Playground, the large remnants of a lumber kiln that sit on the property behind the Bayshore Mall. In February, a jury ruled that the city knew its property was in dangerous condition but failed to take any steps to protect the public.
The case stems from July 19, 2011, when Kathleen Anderson was taking a couple of new-to-town homeless people onto the property in an effort to show them a safe place to camp for the night. While walking through one of the kiln’s old loading docks — semi-enclosed concrete bays littered with large holes in the ground — Anderson tripped on a piece of protruding rebar and got her foot stuck in one of the holes, which sent her falling forward, crashing down on the cement, according to her attorney, Patrik Greigo. Anderson broke her shoulder and hit her head in the fall.
Local attorney Nancy Delaney, who represented the city at trial, seemed a bit flummoxed by the verdict.
“We initially viewed it as a case where Ms. Anderson — while her injuries were unfortunate — was walking around in an area that, given due diligence to her health, she shouldn’t have been, trying to help a couple of individuals find a place to camp illegally,” Delaney said, referring to Anderson as a “self-styled” homeless advocate. “To me, it was disappointing that jurors looked at that and concluded that somebody that cared about their own safety would be walking around out there.”
The thing is, Griego said, if the city had been able to show jurors that it had even posted a warning sign on the property, they likely would have ruled against his client. But there was no evidence that warnings had ever been posted, Griego said, adding that the city also seemed to make matters worse for itself by denying in court that it knew that people frequented the graffiti-covered structure that’s surrounded by one of the city’s largest illegal homeless encampments. It probably looked bad to the jury, Griego said, when former Eureka Police Chief Murl Harpham, an officer on the force and local homeless advocate John Shelter all testified that they frequently saw people on, in and around the structure, doing everything from sleeping and painting to bird watching and just hanging out.
“I do think that really hurt them,” Griego said.
Interestingly, Griego said jurors in the case initially deadlocked when it came to the question of whether there was shared liability in the case, with eight jurors feeling the city was 100-percent liable and four believing Anderson shared at least part of the blame. Fearing the case would end in a mistrial, Griego said he actually ended up arguing to the eight jurors on his client’s side that she did, in fact, share some fault. “We maintained she was partially at fault — you don’t fall into a hole unless you’ve done something wrong,” Griego said, adding that the jury ultimately decided the city was 70-percent liable, with Anderson carrying the rest of the blame.
The case then moved to the damages phase, and Griego entered mediated settlement talks with the Redwood Empire Municipal Insurance Fund (REMIF), which essentially acts as the city’s insurance carrier. Delaney said Anderson had initially sought damages in excess of $1 million, but agreed to settle for $400,000, all of which will be paid by REMIF. (Though none of the settlement will come out of the city’s general fund, it may impact its future insurance costs.)
If $400,000 sounds like a lot, Griego said it really isn’t when considering Anderson’s injuries, which necessitated shoulder-replacement surgery and have permanently left her with limited use of her right arm.
The Devil’s Playground is on one of a number of parcels behind the mall that were gifted to the city through various nonprofits about 20 years ago and include a network of trails to the north. The situation is complex because there’s a railroad right of way running through the property, which is also subject to an open space easement from the Redwood Region Audubon Society, so the city is prohibited from fully blocking public access.
Eureka City Manager Greg Sparks said the city currently has a grant application pending that would provide funds to tear down the Devil’s Playground structures and use the concrete as a base to construct walking trails in the area. Sparks said he expects to learn the fate of the application this summer but, in the meantime, the structure poses ongoing liability concerns, so he’s asking staff to look into posting warning signs to the public. While there’s been a litany of city activity in the Devil’s Playground area in recent months to deal with the entrenched homeless camps there, Sparks said those efforts are entirely unrelated to Anderson’s settlement.
Griego said there’s a certain irony to the case, noting that the Devil’s Playground is a classic example of an attractive nuisance — a dangerous property that by nature invites people to use it, much like a run-down, abandoned building that draws vagrants and crime. “The city would try to impose fines with any private property, but this is their building that’s the biggest attractive nuisance in town,” he said.
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This article appears in Growing the Machine.
All I can say is the verdict is so ridiculous. What was she thinking by showing some homeless people where they can live when the City of Eureka is trying to clean that area up? She was where she should NOT have been and doing something she shouldn’t be doing. She was definitely at fault and the City of Eureka should not be paying for her stupidity. It’s always about helping the homeless. What about those people who work hard every day to make a living, raise a family and work pay check to pay check. They don’t give up, they are proud people who want to do it on their own. Who helps them???
Driving a wedge between working people and the homeless is shameful and irrational.
At no fault of their own millions of American families are still being wrongfully foreclosed and sent into bankruptcy at the hands of unscrupulous Realtors and financiers. Many working people are one illness away from homelessness themselves, families that would benefit by an actual safety net, if one existed.
Very few people want to live in destitution. 25% of the homeless are U.S. Veterans, over 50% are women and children.
If communities cared about their residents they would be loudly advocating for every American to have access to basic necessities because doing so actually saves money for local governments:
http://www.nationswell.com/one-state-track…
If the homeless want more than a free single-room apartment, subsistence food and medical care, (most do), they will be equipped to work for it and that’s exactly what happened in Utah.
Self-educate to shed the hate.
I am a project manager at the State Coastal Conservancy. The Devil’s Playground was acquired by the City with a grant from the Conservancy and a bargain sale from PALCO. I don’t think that this parcel was gifted to the City through non-profits, contrary to what the article says.
The Redwood Region Audubon Society easement, which the Conservancy authorized in 2009, applies to all of Parcel 4. The easement actually does not require public access- I think this is another error in your article. It requires the property be preserved in a predominantly natural and open space condition, and allows limited development such as the construction of facilities for public access for wildlife viewing and passive recreation. That being said, the Conservancy supports the idea of safe public access to the property, which will require cleaning up the area. I also want to see help provided to the homeless community camping in the area, and applaud the City for its efforts to provide a place for those folks, while also cleaning up the area and developing a trail.
The city of Eureka was not trying to clean up this area in 2011 when I fell there. As a matter of fact the city attorney, Nancy Delaney, denied that the city knew anything about what was going on back there and that is why I brought forward the suit against them. The city does not put forth any effort to make sure that there is enough housing for people in poverty and instead criminalizes and terrorizes them with police harassment, and then they lie to cover for their egregious disdain for homeless people. Sometimes it takes hitting the pocketbook to make changes happen for the best, that’s what courts are about in our fair country, justice. If it helps any I am using my less than half of the money won (attorney and other fees took up more than half) to build Tiny Houses for people who need them. For Ms. Strattnor….you have no idea what you are talking about until you have experienced homelessness. Before you speak about them walk in their shoes, or without shoes as some of them…..and remember “Pride goeth before a fall”.
Well done Kathy.
Justice is not easily obtained for average citizens.
(Until they started burning down their own city in Baltimore).
Your victory is an anomaly and Nancy Delaney knows it.
Without free, modest, independent houses or apartments, most of the homeless will never have the fundamental human dignity required to participate in society.