Pretrial rulings in Hermosa Beach – Macpherson Oil lawsuit
A judge on Monday issued several rulings to shape the Macpherson Oil Company breach-of-contract which, officials say, could bankrupt Hermosa Beach.
From the bench in downtown Los Angeles, Superior Court Judge Joanne O’Donnell ruled that former City Council members will not be allowed to explain to the jury their thought processes when they cancelled a drilling contract held by Macpherson in 1998.
Attorneys for the city had argued that the jury should hear from the council members, and attorneys for Macpherson argued that an earlier ruling by an appeals court limits the city to presenting the administrative record of the council’s decision, such as written minutes and transcripts from the Sept. 17, 1998 council meeting.
Maureen Bright, an attorney for Macpherson Oil, described the results of the hearing as a significant win.
“We pretty much got all of what we wanted,” she said. “In Macpherson’s mind, it was a key to victory.”
Bright said the judge also denied a request by the city to add a number of expert witnesses to its list of people who will be called upon to testify.
City Attorney Michael Jenkins said the city lost some of Monday’s rulings and won some, including the judge’s prohibition against Macpherson attorneys describing the anti-drilling Proposition E, approved by Hermosa voters in the mid-1990s, as a breach of Macpherson’s contract.
He said the rulings tailored the ways both sides could “tell their stories” to the jury, but did not significantly hamper either side.
“They love to go to the press and brag about small victories, but this is not a big thing,” Jenkins said.
In addition, he said the judge’s rulings can be revisited by attorneys at later points.
Monday’s court hearing was attended by City Manager Steve Burrell, Councilman Kit Bobko, who is a municipal attorney by trade, and Don Macpherson Jr., of Macpherson Oil.
Lawyers for the city will fight for Hermosa’s solvency in the trial, scheduled for Jan. 18.
Jim Bright, an attorney for Macpherson, has said a key question before the jury will be whether then-City Council members Sam Edgerton, John Bowler and Julie Oakes canceled the company’s oil-drilling contract with the city based on information that was not available to them when the council approved the contract six years before. Council members said they canceled the project because Macpherson’s plan to slant-drill for oil under the Pacific Ocean, from a city maintenance yard at Sixth Street and Valley Drive, posed too great a safety risk to the community.
Then-Councilmen J.R. Reviczky and Bob Benz did not participate, citing conflicts of interest because they owned property close to the maintenance yard.
The 13-year-long breach-of-contract case has made its way up and down the court system, giving both sides wins and losses along the way.