Quick Take
Pajaro Valley flood victims are still waiting for relief, and the over 1,000 plaintiffs suing the government agencies are inching closer to their day in court, or a settlement.
The long, litigious tail behind Santa Cruz County’s 2023 winter storms still has no end in sight.
But this week, a partner at one of the firms leading the mass tort against local and state government agencies for their alleged failure to protect Pajaro Valley residents and businesses against the destructive floods told Lookout that they are seeking damages in the range of tens of millions of dollars.
“What we want to see is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per household,” Shant Karnikian, a managing partner at Los Angeles-based Kabateck LLP, one of the leading firms in the suits, told Lookout on Wednesday. Karnikian could not immediately offer a precise number of households represented in the suit. However, more than 1,000 plaintiffs are seeking relief, including local businesses, farms and one insurance company.
The nine lawsuits filed between 2023 and 2024 fault a half-dozen government agencies for the damage caused by a string of atmospheric rivers in the winter of 2023, beginning with the New Year’s Eve floods in Watsonville and ending with the catastrophic breach of the Pajaro River levee on March 11.
Santa Cruz and Monterey counties are named in the lawsuit, as well as local flood management agencies, the City of Watsonville, the State of California and the state’s department of transportation.
The lawsuits allege that the governments not only knewor should have known, that the levee’s instability posed grave risks to the region’s people and businesses, but that they also failed in their responsibility to address the issue.
In the case of the Green Valley Creek floods that inundated low-income areas of Watsonville, the plaintiffs claim that watershed infrastructure fell into “unprecedented disrepair” ahead of the storms, and that more vigilant management of the creeks would have guarded against the damage.
The sides remain in the discovery stage of the lawsuits — when lawyers gather and exchange evidence and information about the case — until July 8, and are scheduled to meet for a case management conference on July 25, which will give more clarity on the precise claims of each plaintiff. Karnikian said he is hopeful the sides will set a trial date by the end of the year, likely for 2026.
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