When retirees Doug Ridley and Sherry Shen ran out of money to pay their legal bills amid a yearslong battle with their homeowners association, their attorneys agreed to push on without pay.
Lawyers Terence and Mary Ann O’Hara — a San Jose husband-and-wife team who have been married for 37 years — agreed that helping the couple whose lives were upended in 2018 over an abandoned artesian well that sprang to life beneath their Santa Clara condo was the right thing to do.
“Most normal people can’t afford to have a lawyer fight for them, but Doug and Sherry are just salt of the earth kind of people,” Mary Ann O’Hara said. “There was no way we could have abandoned them without following through with everything.”
But the O’Haras’ decision came with sacrifices — they maxed out their line of credit, turned away potential clients, borrowed money from their son and dipped into their retirement savings to take on what Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge JoAnne McCracken described as a “David and Goliath case.”
In February, McCracken ruled that the Rancho Palma Grande Homeowners Association and former HOA president Steve Moritz “engaged in extensive deception,” violated the Elder Abuse Act and breached state laws regulating HOAs. The HOA will be responsible for more than $1.8 million in damages owed to Ridley and Shen.
Now, the O’Haras could soon be getting their due. McCracken this month ordered the HOA to pay them $6 million in attorney fees.
During the July 9 court hearing, McCracken said that she “does not order this amount of money lightly.”
“Part of the reason the fees are very high in this case is we’re talking about the extent to which false statements, conduct that should never have happened by the HOA had to be unraveled,” the judge said, according to a transcript of the proceeding.
Ridley, 85, purchased the three-bedroom, two-bath condo in 1991 and lived there for more than two decades, eventually renting it out in 2015. The rental income was supposed to serve as a retirement nest egg for him and Shen, but things took a turn in April 2018 when their tenant spotted a reflection in a floor grate from water that had accumulated in the crawl space.
They later learned that the water was flowing from a more-than-400-feet deep well located beneath the living room. Similar artesian wells used to be sprinkled throughout Silicon Valley and provided irrigation for orchards and farms when the region was better known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight. Many of the wells were decommissioned decades ago before being developed over. The one under Ridley and Shen’s condo, though, had been forgotten.
What ensued was a bitter struggle between the couple and the HOA over the source of the problem. For several years, the HOA maintained that its records showed the water wasn’t caused by a well, but instead was due to a high ground water table.
Meanwhile, foul odors flooded the condo and mold grew as a sump pump that Ridley installed tried to keep up, dumping 15,000 to 17,000 galloons of water a day into the yard. At trial, Moritz, the former HOA president, testified that he falsely claimed there wasn’t mold in the condo when he told Ridley that the condo was habitable.
The ground under the crawl space in the living room eventually collapsed into a sinkhole, which was discovered in September 2019. Several months later, in January of 2020, the HOA finally cut a hole in the floor above the sinkhole — a suggestion they had received two years prior — and saw the bubbling hole had “no discernible bottom,” according to court documents.
The well was destroyed the following month and the hole in the living room floor was closed. But five years later, the condo remains uninhabitable as the HOA has appealed an injunction ordering them to complete the construction work. A judge with the Sixth District Court of Appeal is expected to hear the matter next month.
Ridley and Shen have yet to see the $1.8 million in damages that the HOA and Moritz owe them, and the O’Haras recognize that the $6 million they’re due is unlikely to hit their bank account anytime soon.
In an interview at the Santa Clara condo, Terence O’Hara said he knew early on that the case was likely to consume a lot of money and resources. In the beginning, Ridley asked him just how far they’d be willing to take the case if the HOA continued denying responsibility.
“The O’Haras are all in,” Terence said he told Ridley. “What that means is we’re going to take it all the way no matter what.”
Over the last seven years, the O’Haras and some of their colleagues who helped along the way have spent upwards of 6,400 billable hours on the case. But the actual number is likely much higher.
“We’re out for dinner, we’re talking about the case. We’re watching TV, we’re talking about the case. We’re driving up to see our new grandson, we’re talking about the case,” Terence said. “We don’t bill for any of that time. Really the amount of hours and thought devoted to this are 50-to-100% more than what we submitted to the court.”
Mary Ann O’Hara said that she’s hopeful they can come to a mediation with the HOA without having to fight any further.
“I hope they pay the judgement quickly,” she said. “I hope that maybe this case will lead to some changes in the laws, which would make it easier for homeowners to have the homeowners association take care of what they’re supposed to take care of promptly.”
It’s unclear how the HOA, which oversees more than 100 condos in Rancho Palma Grande, will find the money to pay Ridley, Shen and the O’Haras. The $1.8 million is accruing 10% interest each month, and Terence said that it’s likely the HOA could owe more in attorneys fees through the appeals process.
Bobby Dale Sims Jr. and John Hill — attorneys for the HOA and Moritz — did not respond to a request for comment. In a 2022 court filing, though, the lawyers said that the HOA is insured by Philadelphia Insurance under a policy that has a $2 million limit. The policy, however, doesn’t cover the cost of attorney’s fees or expenses that stem from the abatement, treatment or remediation of fungi or bacteria.
Terence credits much of their success in the case to Mary Ann, who he called “one of the best lawyers around.” He describes himself as the hammer, a “more rough and tumble” attorney who made his name fighting construction cases. Mary Ann, he said, is more of a scalpel in their legal duo with the ability to dig through documents with a fine tooth comb and untangle fraud.
“Mary Ann can put on all the hats, and that’s rare,” Terence said.
“That’s nice,” said Mary Ann, smiling at her husband’s compliment. “We are a good team.”