SFL Paramount v. Friendly Village Mobile Associates CA2/1

BACKGROUND

The Parties and Their Dispute Friendly Village and SFL owned neighboring parcels of land in the City of Long Beach, located on a site formerly used as a garbage dump. Friendly Village used its property to operate a mobile home park, containing 182 mobile homes, two apartment buildings, a clubhouse and a pool. Twenty-four of the mobile homes were situated along the southern border of Friendly Village’s property, adjacent to SFL’s property. The mobile home park was built on top of the garbage dump. Thus, the soil underneath was filled with refuse. When SFL acquired the property next to the mobile home park in 2005, SFL’s property was a vacant lot. The prior owners had planned to turn the property into a self- storage facility. SFL continued with this plan. SFL decided the appropriate way to develop the property—and to promote stability and avoid subsistence problems at the property—was to grade and excavate the property by making vertical cuts in the soil, scraping off the top soil, removing the garbage under the top soil, and removing the waste from the property. Before beginning the work, SFL had visited Friendly Village’s property and observed the effects of building…