Funeral to Be Held for Attorney Tobin; Represented City in McColl Dump Suits

A funeral Mass will be said today for Kathy L. Tobin, Fullerton’s lead attorney in a maze of lawsuits involving the McColl dump, who died Sunday after a sudden illness. She was 32.

Tobin, a respected associate with the prestigious Costa Mesa law firm of Rutan & Tucker, also served as deputy city attorney for Villa Park and Yorba Linda and assistant city attorney for San Fernando.

For the last two years, Tobin represented the City of Fullerton against civil lawsuits filed by 143 families living around the abandoned dump for World War II aviation fuel waste. Tobin was one of several attorneys scrambling in recent months to prepare for the complex trial, which was to begin March 10 and last up to two years. The trial date has been postponed pending appeals on legal issues in the case.

Michael McCormick, managing partner at Rutan & Tucker, said news of Tobin’s death came as a shock to her colleagues and was a tremendous loss.

“She was a very bright person, very hard working,” McCormick said Thursday. “She had a real talent for legal writing” and making complicated legal issues clear, he added.

Fullerton City Atty. Kerry Fox remembered Tobin as a “a neat lady and a dynamite attorney” who was “always serene, always helpful, always on top of things and always had a good sense of humor.”

A native of north San Diego County, Tobin was graduated magna cum laude from UC Irvine in 1977. She was hired by Rutan & Tucker directly out of UCLA Law School in 1980, where she was graduated in the top 10% of her class.

Tobin is survived by her husband, Dr. Philip Quirk, and 2-year-old son, Matthew. She had been expecting the couple’s second child in August. She also leaves parents William and Loretta Tobin of Escondido, five sisters and four brothers.

The Mass will be held at 10 a.m. at Santiago de Compostela Church in El Toro. Burial will follow at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange.

Tobin’s family requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to St. Joseph Hospital Foundation Research Fund in Orange.