OXNARD : 2 Settlements OKd in Oil Dump Lawsuit

Property owners and residents of the Oxnard Dunes subdivision formally accepted $450,000 in settlements Monday from three oil companies and a group of mineral rights owners whom they sued in 1986 over an oil-waste dump buried beneath their neighborhood.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Melinda A. Johnson approved two separate settlements that resolve a portion of the massive lawsuit that includes 175 plaintiffs and dozens of defendants.

In one settlement, Chevron USA, Mobil Oil Corp. and Oryx Energy agreed to pay $200,000 to the residents and property owners involved in the lawsuit. In another settlement, owners of mineral rights beneath Oxnard Dunes, including members of the McGrath family and a partnership that owns a neighboring property, agreed to pay $250,000 to the plaintiffs.

Both groups of defendants said they paid the settlements to avoid the cost of arguing their case in a lengthy trial, which is scheduled to begin Aug. 5 for other defendants in the suit.

“The cost to continue to participate in the litigation, it was estimated, would far exceed the cost it would take each of our clients to settle this case,” said Kenneth Waggoner, an attorney for the oil companies.

“The cost of proceeding to trial for the mineral owners would have been geometrically in excess of the settlement monies actually paid, and it really didn’t justify dragging these people through three to five years of trial,” said Glen Reiser, attorney for the McGrath family.

But some key defendants remain in the suit, including the city of Oxnard and the Oxnard Shores Co., said Paul Dolan, a spokesman for the residents and property owners who filed the lawsuit.

“We’ve always been fully prepared to go to trial. We never wanted anyone to doubt that,” Dolan said. “And we’re still ready to go to trial Aug. 5, and we don’t want any ambiguity on that.”