Home Buyers’ Suit Settled for $5.5 Million
An unusually bitter lawsuit by nearly three dozen homeowners in Riverside County against Kaufman & Broad Home Corp. has been settled for about $5.5 million, according to sources familiar with the case.
The suit by 34 homeowners in Riverside and Corona charged the giant development company with covering up faulty construction methods that caused second-story floors to sag and with paying off a building inspector with gifts. Kaufman & Broad denied the allegations.
The settlement ends more than four years of dispute with Kaufman & Broad, which specializes in building affordable homes for first-time buyers.
Kaufman & Broad still faces homeowner suits in Riverside County and Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area, after recently settling another homeowner complaint in Marin County.
Christopher P. Ruiz, an attorney for the homeowners, said that most of the 34 families are “glad they are finally able to put this behind them.â€
Ruiz, who works for the Los Angeles law firm of Tharpe & Howell, said some of his clients wanted to try to prove their allegations in court. “For the greater good of the group, they elected to accept the settlement,†Ruiz said.
According to Karatz, there were no winners in the suit. “I don’t think . . . anyone ends up winning in litigation,†he said, adding that “Lawyers do fine.â€
Both Karatz and Ruiz declined to discuss the amount of the settlement, citing a confidentiality agreement.
Besides contending that Kaufman & Broad tried to hide construction defects, the litigants were angry over admissions in sworn statements by Dean C. Johnson, a retired building inspector for the city of Riverside, that he had approved many of the homes without inspecting them and that he had accepted liquor and building materials as gifts from Kaufman & Broad.
Johnson denied that the gifts constituted a bribe.
After an extensive investigation, Riverside County Dist. Atty. Grover C. Trask II said that there was not enough evidence to warrant prosecution in the case.
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