Appeals Courts Backs Mudslide Victim

More than five years ago, Lisa Guthrie’s world collapsed in an avalanche of mud - literally.

A tragic mudslide above her Bolsa Ave. home killed Guthrie’s husband Walter and destroyed their home, sending her into a years-long court battle with the City of Mill Valley and its insurance company over what caused the incident.

“Our house was wiped out, I lost my husband and the property was destroyed – so there I was,” she said.

Guthrie’s saga got closer to its end point late last week when the state Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in her favor, rejecting the city’s appeal of a Marin Superior Court ruling in April 2009. The three-judge panel backed the lower court’s award of $3.7 million to Guthrie, as well as $315,000 to her neighbors, Douglas and Perian Wilson, whose property above the Guthrie home was also damaged in the incident.

“We think we’ve been vindicated,” Guthrie said of the July 15 ruling. “But it’s a long time to wait to be vindicated.”

Despite the burst of long-awaited good news, Guthrie’s battle isn’t over. The City of Mill Valley has until July 30 to ask the appellate court to reconsider its ruling. It can also appeal the latest ruling to the state Supreme Court.

“I’m fighting an insurance company and they’re just dragging it out,” Guthrie said. “It would simply be a maneuver on their part to delay further the completion of the case.”

Mill Valley City Attorney Greg Stepanicich did not return requests for comment and several city officials decline to comment on the matter.

"Every single person who has looked at this case has said it is time for the city to pay," said Guthrie's attorney, Alan Mayer of San Rafael. "And each time, the city finds a way to delay paying."

The incident dates back to April 2006, when a seemingly relentless rainstorm battered the Bay Area. Guthrie's lawsuit alleges city officials were aware of the deteriorating conditions high above their home at 70 Bolsa Ave. in the weeks before the fatal mudslide but chose not to do anything about it.

The case centers on the conditions on Hillside Avenue, which runs parallel to Bolsa up the hillside from the Guthries' former home, which they moved into in 1970. Hillside Ave. was built before 1925 and the city widened it in 2001. By 2005, the soil below it had started to creep down the hill.

Officials from the city’s public works department were called to the area in March 2006 after reports that Hillside Ave. was cracking at the edge above the Guthrie house.

With Mill Valley being battered by a torrential downpour, Lisa Guthrie came home from a trip to Portland on April 11 to find her 74-year-old husband in the backyard trying to clear out the culvert that ran beneath the house, as rocks and debris had started slipping down the hill.

At 3 a.m., Walter Guthrie was outside again, trying to remove a large rock. Sensing danger, Lisa Guthrie called 911, and soon she heard a loud sound and turned to see a wall of mud piled up against the sliding glass door, causing the door to bulge inward. She quickly realized that her husband was buried below the mountain of mud.

Thirty-six hours passed before emergency crews were able to pull Walter Guthrie's body from the mud. The home has remained uninhabitable since the slide.

Guthrie’s case went to trial in March 2009 and a jury ruled in the plaintiff’s favor one month later. The judge awarded Guthrie and her daughter Annie approximately $4.8 million, though that amount has been reduced as the jury didn’t place 100 percent of the blame on the city. The Wilson-Woods were awarded $315,000 for their own property damage claim.

In its appeal, the city contended that the trial judge in the case, Judge Michael Dufficy, was biased against the city and committed misconduct in the form of a letter sent to a juror in the case. The city also claimed the jury instructions erroneously allowed the jury to award Guthrie damages for emotional distress, and that the evidence in the case was insufficient to prove the city was liable for the dangerous conditions in and around the property.

But in its ruling, written by Judge P.J. Ruvolo, the appellate panel found “no reversible error” in the lower court decision.

The appellate court ruled that “the city's design, construction, and maintenance of Hillside Avenue, acting together, proximately caused the transformation of the creeping landslide into a rapid mud flow” at the time of the incident.

Guthrie, who has been living in an apartment in Tiburon since soon after the incident, hopes to use the award to buy a new home, though she’s unsure if she can afford something in Mill Valley.

She recently sold the 70 Bolsa Ave. property to green architects Liz Miranda and Tim Rempel, who plan to rebuild on it.

“It’s been a very difficult journey,” Guthrie said. “I hadn’t dealt with the legal system before and had no idea that this could go on for so long.”