F. P. Sutherland; Lawyer in Environment Cases

Fredric P. (Ric) Sutherland, president of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, a nationwide law firm that represents environment-oriented organizations, has been killed in a traffic accident near Lake Tahoe.

Sutherland, who had helped found the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles, was 53.

Michael Traynor, chairman of the board of the Sierra defense fund, which is not a part of the Sierra Club, said Sutherland was thrown from a van that was blown over by gusting winds on a mountain road. The accident happened Sunday while Sutherland was on vacation.

A 1964 graduate of UCLA Law School, Sutherland worked for the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers before founding the Center for Law in 1971.

Carlyle Hall, one of four co-founders with Sutherland, said that one of their first cases also became their most significant.

They represented the Sierra Club and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People in litigation over the Century Freeway.

Both environmental and minority concerns were at stake, Hall said Tuesday, as were jobs and the spending of funds for freeways rather than rapid transit.

As a result of the center’s work, parts of the freeway corridor were redesigned, 4,000 housing units were built to assist those displaced by construction and a transit line was included.

In 1977, Sutherland joined the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund as executive director. During his tenure, it has grown into a nationwide firm of 35 lawyers in seven states and Washington, D.C.

Most recently, the defense fund--based in San Francisco--represented environmental groups in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case and the saving of the northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest.

Survivors include his wife, Elizabeth, a daughter and son.

Funeral services are pending. A memorial service will be held later in San Francisco.