Page 14 - Yucaipa Valley Water District

with the physical demands and assure minimum acceptable standards of construction and public
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safety.”
The displacement of hundreds if not thousands of residents can have a devastating impact on a society.
Quite often, when large numbers of people are forced out of their homes, the housing market responds
erratically. This situation is further complicated when the homes lost reflect a large proportion of a
community’s affordable housing stock.

Refugees from the 2017 fires in Napa and Sonoma counties were faced with an out-right housing crisis.

Those who were displaced, whether they owned their homes or rented, faced an expensive real estate
market that was already seriously squeezed by a limited housing stock – particularly for affordable
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housing. Following the fires, many of those who lost their homes fell victim to rent-gouging. Families
with children doubled-up with neighbors hoping to keep their kids in the same school district. Those
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with pets faced added burdens.
This dire housing situation will become an even more serious concern following a major quake in
California, the Association of Bay Area Governments proclaimed. If many of a region’s affordable
housing units are lost in an earthquake, “a constrained market may drive up the cost of housing even
further. Loss or damage of housing that results in increased costs… will likely increase the number of
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permanently displaced Bay Area residents.”

Liability Through Negligence

What legal risks do property owners face if they don’t retrofit their vulnerable buildings?

A two-year study funded by the National Science Foundation’s Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program
determined that case law has put the question in the hands of a jury to decide based on how much the
owner knew about the building defects, how much he or she knew about retrofits that could correct
structural weaknesses, and the cost-to-benefit analysis of having a retrofit done. The Association of Bay
Area Governments prepared a document for businesses, warning of potential liability issues from
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earthquake damage.

Building owners can be found liable, according to a precedent-setting case in Paso Robles, where, during
an earthquake in 2003, two employees of a clothing store were crushed to death by falling bricks and
plaster as they ran out of a building that had been ordered by the city to be seismically retrofitted but
the deadline for completion had not yet passed. The families of the women sued the property owners
and won. A jury awarded them $2 million, finding that the property owners were negligent because
they knew the building had the potential of being unsafe in an earthquake but did nothing about it. A
state appeals court upheld the verdict in 2010. xxvii The precedent was set: It didn’t matter whether the
quake was an “act of God” or that the building technically complied with the city retrofit ordinance
because the deadline to have the work done had not yet passed. The jury determined that the simple
fact of knowing a building may be unsafe and not taking action is grounds enough to assign blame
through negligence.

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Yucaipa Valley Water District - March 8, 2018 - Page 14 of 40