Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

"We felt very bullied," local Fallbrook family claims lawsuit against FPUD

In a harrowing experience for a local Fallbrook family, Shane and Liz Lingle and their two kids had damages to their home of up to $200,000, due to a water main bursting outside their home. The main belonged to the Fallbrook Public Utilities District.

After going through the proper channels to try to get FPUD to pay for the damages according to their lawyer, FPUD denied the claim, which has resulted in a lawsuit filed by the family.

"It was New Year's Eve, Dec. 31 of 2019," Liz Lingle said. "I work from home as an advice nurse for a large HMO in Southern California, and I was just finishing up my shift and I heard a huge crash and I thought there was a car accident outside. Suddenly it just started pouring rain."

Liz Lingle thought it was a random thunder shower.

"At that time my husband was down the street with our kiddos," she said. "I was just finishing up logging out of work, and as I came out he was banging on the door, and he came in and was telling me that it wasn't a thunder shower, there was actually a water pipe that had burst in our street and was basically showering our home directly with a torrential downpour."

Liz Lingle added that the water from where it had burst was pointing directly at their home, which they've lived at since July 2010.

"It was very frightening; it was very scary because it didn't seem like anybody could turn it off, and that was the most horrible part about it," she said. "All the fire trucks came and all the police came and the firefighters were coming through our home looking at the damages, and we're begging them to turn the water off, but they said that they weren't allowed to touch anything, only the water district could touch it."

Her husband, Shane Lingle called 911 when it happened, but the call was redirected to FPUD.

"It ended up taking about 30 minutes for one of the employees to show up and another 20 minutes to turn it off," Shane Lingle said.

"We just kept trying to put towels, and the water was pouring through our ceiling, and it was coming under every room in the north side of our home; the whole north side of our home was flooded," Liz Lingle said. "It was pouring through our smoke detector, it was so strange."

Liz Lingle added that it felt like fighting a losing battle. After talking with CHP, they were told to call a water restoration company.

"When the water restoration company came out, unfortunately they said this is category three water, which is black water," Liz Lingle said. "It means that we're not even allowed to put fans out, we can't do anything, (we were) going to have to have every part of the home that the water touched, the drywall is going to have to be cut out. That's when we started realizing this is incredible, this is such a huge destruction."

Besides the damage to the home, they also lost items inside the home, as well as most of their camping supplies that had been in a trailer on site, which also had been directly in line with the water when it hit.

"Basically everything on the north side of the home, that just got completely saturated with water cause that's where we store our son's go kart, our lawn mower, certain things there, and then our landscape was completely destroyed," Liz Lingle said.

When they filed the claim and it came back denied from FPUD, they hired lawyer Evan Walker, from the Law Office of Evan W. Walker.

"The blame is squarely being placed on Fallbrook Public Utilities Department. Our understanding is that's their water main, and they have a responsibility to maintain it," Walker said.

However, FPUD is under the law of public entity, meaning that you can't turn around and sue them, according to Walker.

"You have to bring a claim under what's called the government Tort Claims Act," Walker said. "Anyone who has a claim against a public entity, they have to file a government tort claim with the appropriate department within a certain period of time, and we did that here.

"The family filled out the correct form, put in the information of the incident, claimed the damages, provided supporting documentation, and submitted all of that timely to Fallbrook Public Utilities Department," he added. Around 45 days later, they sent a rejection letter.

While FPUD is not able to discuss the matters of the case, Noelle Denke, public affairs, did give a statement in regards to their pipe system.

"Fallbrook Public Utilities District service area will be 100 in June of 2022, and so obviously we've got some older pipes buried under the ground, pipes that need to be replaced, pipes that do break," Denke said.

"We have line breaks and we also have a program in place to replace those older lines to limit the breaks, because obviously it's less expensive, and less disruptive to residents and businesses and just the town in general for us to have a scheduled shut down, to replace that aging pipe rather than waiting for a pipe to break and then taking a band aid approach," she added.

Maintenance is mostly ongoing, according to Denke.

"What I can say about property damage claims is that any property damage claims over $10,000 are sent to our insurance company and they're almost always resolved without issues," she said.

The Lingle's had to pay out of pocket for the damages to restore it enough so that they could move back into it, as they had to stay at an Airbnb for nearly two months after it happened. According to Walker, due to the damage being caused by flood water, it is specifically excluded under homeowners insurance.

"We moved back in right before COVID started," Liz Shingle said. "It's been a really long haul remediating the damages and having to, unfortunately pay out of pocket for a big portion of it, and make the home safe and livable to have our family in. We don't have any flooring right now, and we have raw walls."

COVID-19 has upended a lot of things, including the courts, according to Walker.

"Our first required court appearance is not until April of next year," Walker said. "Then at that time we expect to get a trial date which probably will be the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022."

"We had to hire the lawyer because we had to make our home safe, and basically it wasn't going to happen trying to work with them alone," Liz Lingle said. "We felt very bullied, and it was very frightening to think that your biggest asset is destroyed and you might never have it back the way it was."

Lexington Howe can be reached by email at [email protected].

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 
Rendered 03/17/2024 11:58