Reporting from Paso Robles, Calif.—
It was three days before Christmas when a magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocked the Central Coast in 2003.
Cracking like a bullwhip from the mountains, the shaking felt like an explosion in Paso Robles' historic downtown. Two women working at a clothing store were crushed to death by falling bricks and plaster as they ran out of an old building — the last people to die in a California earthquake.
The families of the women sued the property owners, who responded that the quake was an "act of God" and that the building was in compliance with city building codes. The city had required this and other brick buildings to be seismically retrofitted, but the deadline for completion was still years away when the quake hit.
A jury awarded the families nearly $2 million, concluding that the property owners were negligent for not making the building safer. In 2010 a state appeals court upheld the verdict, finding that the building's compliance with city law "did not insulate owners of unreinforced building from negligence in failing to retrofit building."
The question of whether property owners can be held liable for earthquake losses bears heavily on Los Angeles, where officials are considering an ambitious plan to publicly identify and require retrofits of potentially dangerous buildings. Some property owners fear that assessing the seismic risks of their buildings will create legal liability in the event of a destructive quake.
Loyola Law School professor John Nockleby called the Paso Robles decision "profoundly important."
Nockleby compared it to the hypothetical case of a building without sprinklers or fire extinguishers that is struck by lightning and catches fire.
"Well, the lightning is an act of God. We can't control that. But we can take steps," he said. "And so, in an earthquake zone, if you have a building that is susceptible to falling down or collapsing or serious damage, and you're aware that it requires retrofitting in order to withstand modest earthquakes, you could certainly be liable."
Earlier California earthquakes have resulted in out-of-court settlements.
In the 1994 Northridge quake, 16 residents were crushed to death when the Northridge Meadows apartment complex collapsed. The owner's insurer paid undisclosed damages to the families of the victims.
After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, more than $2.2 million was paid to the families of three workers who were killed when a San Francisco brick building's fourth-story wall fell onto a parking lot below, leaving parked cars crumpled and twisted, according to a report at the time in the San Francisco Chronicle. Settlement amounts to the families of two others who died were not disclosed.
But the Paso Robles case has drawn much more attention from seismic safety officials and policymakers because a jury found negligence and it created case law.
Potentially hazardous
Jennifer Lynn Myrick and Marilyn Frost-Zafuto worked at Ann's Contemporary Clothing, an upscale dress shop in downtown Paso Robles.
Myrick had just turned 20 and planned to get married in a few months. Frost-Zafuto was 55. After her daughter left for college in the fall, she wanted to get out and socialize, and took delight in her retail job helping women pick dresses.
The store was inside the landmark Acorn building in Paso Robles' downtown. It was built in the 1890s out of brick, topped with an acorn-shaped clock tower.
The city did a survey of brick buildings and alerted the Acorn's owner in 1989 that it was among those that officials concluded was potentially hazardous. Three years later, Paso Robles passed a law requiring retrofits of these buildings. The Acorn building had a 2018 deadline.
The Dec. 22, 2003, quake caused the building's walls to collapse. The roof slid onto the sidewalk, taking down the clock tower. Myrick and Frost-Zafuto were crushed by bricks as they fled.
"It just looked like somebody dropped a bomb on it," Frank Mecham, the mayor at the time, recalled.
When families decided to sue, some lawyers they consulted warned they would lose.
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