Flooded creek doomed SLO County family’s home. A jury will decide who’s responsible
A homeowner’s lawsuit against the city of Atascadero over 2023 storm damage that forced his family out of their home has finally gone to trial over two years later.
San Luis Obispo County faced historic rains in 2023 that caused an estimated $40 million in damages to county infrastructure.
Aaron Spiller was one of the victims.
Spiller’s home — located at 1210 San Ramon Road in Atascadero — was red-tagged and deemed unsafe to occupy in March 2023 after heavy rainfall flooded Graves Creek, which bordered the property, eroding the creek bank so much so that it threatened the foundation of his home.
In September of the same year, Spiller filed a lawsuit alleging the city was responsible for the property damage because it failed to properly maintain the creek during the particularly heavy rain season.
Spiller and his family have not been able to return to the home since. They foreclosed on the property this fall, according to court documents.
Spiller had bought the home in 2010 for $390,000, and refinanced it in 2020 with a $416,000 mortgage.
Originally, the lawsuit sought $900,000 for the cost to repair the property, but since Spiller no longer owns the home, he is now suing for the cost and emotional distress of losing the property.
The trial began on Wednesday at the Paso Robles branch of San Luis Obispo Superior Court.
Both Spiller’s and the city’s attorneys declined to comment during the ongoing trial.
“The city looks forward to presenting its case to the judge and jury,” Atascadero spokesperson Terrie Banish told The Tribune in an email statement.
What happened to the Atascadero home?
The Spillers’ problems began on Jan. 22, 2023, when Spiller and his neighbors noticed an oak tree had fallen into Graves Creek during a storm and lodged itself upstream of the Spillers’ home, according to court documents.
The city had sent out an emergency proclamation on Jan. 9 warning of the threat “downed trees” posed to public and private property, specifically referencing Graves Creek as one of the “conditions of disaster and extreme peril to the safety of persons, their property and public services” giving rise to the state of emergency.
During another atmospheric river that March, the oak tree was pushed downstream, landing in the creek embankment adjacent to the Spillers’ property.
Storm debris trapped by the tree created a dam that diverted the flow of the river directly toward the Spillers’ property, causing the water to eat away significantly at his backyard.
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Spiller contacted the city for assistance on March 10, in-person and via email, but was told “if a creek meanders outside the creek reservation naturally then the owner of the creek reservation is not responsible to maintain or restore it,” according to court documents.
The creek lies “on both the city’s and Spiller’s property,” court documents said.
Later in the day on March 10, the Atascadero Fire Department came out to Spiller’s property to monitor the situation and set up caution tape around the erosion, but no action was taken to remove the tree from the creek. Spiller was told to contact the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance.
In the days that followed, a break in the harsh weather allowed Spiller — with help from family and friends — to enter the creek and attempt to clear the oak tree and storm debris themselves, but the large tree and volume of material damming the creek was too much to remove on their own, court documents said.
Heavy rain hit again on March 14 and 15, causing further erosion to the Spillers’ already disappearing backyard until “only a few feet of land remained between the Spillers’ house and the top of the creek embankment,” court documents said.
Spiller emailed the city again on March 16 for “urgent” help.
“Currently the diverted creek bank is about five feet from the foundation of my house,” he wrote, again requesting removal of the oak tree and reinforcement of the creek embankment, which was then nearing his home.
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On March 17, the property was red-tagged, forcing the Spiller family to evacuate, and the city contracted a service to remove the tree and debris from the creek at the cost of $20,000, court documents show.
Spiller shared a driveway with his neighbor, who would not allow heavy equipment to cross his driveway for fear of damage it might cause, so the larger portions of the oak tree were cut up but could not be removed from the creek bed, court documents said. Smaller debris, branches and smaller piece of wood were chipped and removed on March 18 and 19.
But by then, a “catastrophic degree of damage had already occurred and there was no saving the Spiller property,” court documents said.
On June 29, 2023, local contractor Anderson Burton quoted the cost to fill in the erosion with native soil to restore the damaged property at $882,800 — “more than the value of the entire property,” Spiller said in court on Thursday. The property was valued at $790,000 property valuation as of March 2023, according to court documents.
When asked by the city’s attorneys in court if he ever considered undertaking any of the repairs to restore the property, Spiller said that “there was just no way I could.”
“The sheer amount of money it was going to take to even start the project — I don’t have that kind of money anywhere near that in the bank,” he said.
Spiller received a $14,000 individual assistance grant from FEMA in April 2023 but told The Tribune at the time it was “a drop in the bucket.”
After the event, Spiller obtained a mortgage forbearance on his home to temporarily stop making mortgage payments. He foreclosed on the house and sold it back to the lender this fall.
“I no longer own it,” Spiller told the court Thursday.
Spiller filed a claim with the city in July 2023 and met with multiple city, county and federal representatives including city Councilmember Susan Funk, Supervisor Bruce Gibson and Congressman Jimmy Panetta, but to no avail, he said.
After his claim fell dead, he sued the city on Sept. 13, 2023.
What did the homeowner, city argue?
The courtroom was empty on Thursday save for Spiller, the attorneys, the judge, a 12-person jury and two of Spiller’s family members.
While Spiller’s attorney argued that the city was responsible for identifying and clearing out the oak tree and trapped debris from the river, the city countered that it had no way of removing the tree because they had not been told by any residents before March 10, 2023, of its existence.
“The city is not and cannot be liable because it had no notice of the condition and did not cause the condition,” court documents said.
The city argued that Spiller neither called the city about the oak tree before March 10 — though his neighbor remembered him saying he would — nor “took any action to remove the tree or request that it be removed by any entity or individual,” during breaks in the storm, according to the city attorney’s trial brief.
“Spiller ... did nothing to protect his property from erosion prior to the subject event,” court documents said.
However, Spiller believes it was the city’s responsibility to protect his property by maintaining the creek.
“Despite the emergency proclamation, the city admits it took absolutely no action between January 10, 2023, and March 10, 2023, to inspect Graves Creek for any downed trees, debris or other hazards,” a trial brief from Spiller’s lawyers said, referring to the city’s Jan. 9 emergency proclamation. “As a result, the city never became aware of the massive oak tree that had fallen into the creek upstream from the Spiller property just days after the emergency proclamation was ratified.”
There was also disagreement over who owned the section of Graves Creek by Spiller’s property.
Over 90% of Graves Creek is privately owned, but the city does own two creek parcels that adjoin the Spiller property, court documents from the city’s attorneys said.
Spiller didn’t call a crane company to remove the tree in March 2023 because he didn’t want to pay for it and didn’t feel he had “authority” to contract a company for city land, he said.
The city, on the other hand, did not perform regular maintenance of the creek because it was “almost completely privately owned,” court documents said.
The city also argued it could be the fault of Spiller’s neighbor, whose property the tree originated from.
“I didn’t know who owned that tree, but I knew it ended up ultimately in the creek, and that’s that’s what caused the damage,” Spiller said.
