City’s logic stumps driver

Maya Karayeva did not hear the tree fall on her 1990 Toyota Cressida, but those who did won’t soon forget the experience.

“It sounded like a bomb,” said Bijan Sani, standing only a few feet from the stub of the city-owned tree that was uprooted during a storm last April and crushed Karayeva’s car like it was a beer can.

“All of Pico knew about it,” said Karayeva, referring to the merchants and residents at Pico Boulevard and Livonia Avenue who flocked to the site. Karayeva had been buying lunch at a nearby store but came running when she heard the news.

“I was crying,” said Karayeva, who moved to the United States from Belarus in 1988 and has been a $10-an-hour cashier at Livonia Glatt Market in West L.A. for 10 years. “My car was destroyed. Totally destroyed. They towed it straight to the junkyard.”

The car was insured for liability but not for a tree falling on it. So it was a total loss, and Karayeva had to borrow money to finance another used car.

So why, you ask, were so many people back at the scene of the disaster last week, hearing the story all over again? Because after waiting 10 months for Los Angeles City Hall to respond to her claim for damages, Karayeva had finally gotten the verdict by mail.

“After reviewing the circumstances of your claim and the applicable law, it has been determined that your claim should be denied,” said the letter from the office of City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo.

And the reason?

“The City of Los Angeles had no prior notice or knowledge of the alleged condition as required by law.”

My advice, based on this, is that every resident of Los Angeles should call City Hall as soon as possible to report any potential hazard, whether it’s a tree that needs a trim or a pothole that might one day grow large enough to swallow your transmission.

If a hazard has not been previously reported, you’re likely to be out of luck when it gets you.

“If someone puts dog food in your dinner, they’ll give you $2 million,” Sani said, referring to the well-documented settlement in a case of discrimination against an L.A. firefighter. “But if a city tree falls on your car, they won’t give you $2,000.”

While Karayeva and her friends were debating the vagaries of the American legal system, Sani volunteered that he had on many occasions called City Hall to report that the tree was wildly overgrown.

“Not two months before this happened, I saw work crews trimming trees on Pico and told them about this one,” said Sani, who added that the workers told him Livonia Avenue trees were not part of their work order.

Ah ha!

So maybe Karayeva has a case after all, now that a star witness has come forward. She says she asked for $10,000 in her claim, the price of the car she had to buy to replace the squashed one. I questioned whether the city was responsible for anything more than the value of her old Cressida.

“It’s not even money, it’s principle,” she said in accented English. “I did nothing wrong. I park my car. The tree falls. No more car.”

The notice from the city said she had six months to get a lawyer and fight the decision, if she so chose.

“But to fight, I need lawyer,” Karayeva said. “And to get lawyer, I need money. I don’t have money.”

Her husband is a cabbie, she said, and they barely make enough to pay the rent and their monthly health insurance bill, which is $1,200.

By chance, I happened to be the keynote speaker later that evening at an awards ceremony for Public Counsel, an organization in which lawyers take on good causes free of charge. I told the story of Karayeva’s crushed Cressida and her need for a lawyer, and Public Counsel attorney Paul Freese raised a hand, saying he’d look into her case.

The next day, I called Delgadillo’s office and told spokesman Nick Velasquez that Maya Karayeva would be coming at the city attorney with a pro bono lawyer and a witness. He took the information and called back Friday morning along with Michael Claesson, chief of litigation, who delivered a rather surprising bit of news.

As for the 10-month decision-making process, Velasquez said only six people are available to investigate 5,400 annual claims.

Claesson said he found no record of Sani’s calls regarding the tree. But a review of the case and a look at the photographic evidence -- The Times had run a picture of Karayeva’s demolished car, dwarfed under the gigantic tree -- convinced him to reverse the decision and pay Karayeva’s claim.

The tree had snapped at ground level, Claesson said, indicating there was a defect that might not have been possible to detect. So he felt the city would be found liable in court and decided to pay Karayeva not $10,000, but the value of her Cressida.

I told him I’d checked the Blue Book value, which was somewhere between $3,500 and $4,500.

About half an hour later, I got a call from Karayeva.

“Oh my God!” she squealed. “I am shocked. I don’t believe it. First they call and say they’re going to look at Blue Book. Fifteen minutes later, second call. They’re going to pay, I think, around $4,300.”

Who says you can’t fight City Hall?

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steve.lopez@latimes.com

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