Couple’s Lives Still Shaken by ’94 Quake

Three years after the Northridge earthquake rolled through their Santa Monica beach house and shook up their lives, Stanley and Doris Meyer are still wading through the aftermath.

Their six-bedroom ocean-view home remains boarded up and their prized collection of Pennsylvania Dutch furniture is still in storage. The tile-roofed abode stands cracked and unrepaired as the severity of the damages is debated. From their two rooms in Santa Monica’s Doubletree Guest Suites--their residence since the temblor--the Meyers have waited for action.

The quake’s destruction, they say, is cracking their spirit and their health as they near the conclusion of a protracted legal battle in Los Angeles Superior Court to collect what they say they are owed: at least $2.5 million to repair and rebuild the foundation of their 6,000-square-foot home. Their insurance company, New Jersey-based Chubb & Sons, says the foundation can be salvaged and repairs made for $880,000. Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Tuesday.

The Meyers’ lawsuit against their insurance company is one of hundreds of complaints lingering in the wake of the Northridge tremor, but there are few homeowners like the Meyers still displaced in temporary quarters as they struggle through the aftershocks of litigation. The last of the 80 quake victims lodged at the Universal City Hilton went home in the fall. Out of the 300 homeowners the Meyers’ attorney represents in quake insurance claims, just one other client still lives in a hotel.

The Meyers’ expensive eighth-floor suites, which the insurance company paid for until two months ago, are adequate, they say. But room service and housekeeping don’t make up for Doris’ gourmet cooking and their spacious retirement house on the shore of the Pacific Ocean.

Their clothes hang from iron bars covered with white sheets next to the bedroom windows. Framed family pictures are carefully balanced on the moldings along the walls, a makeshift mantel. Two mini-bars and three small refrigerators store their food. Their cooking apparatus is limited to microwave and toaster ovens. Silverware sticks out of hotel room glasses in a neat row next to the sink.

Their needs are met, they say, but they feel trapped and helpless.

It’s just not home.

Stanley Meyer, a tall man with bushy eyebrows and hazel eyes, divides his life into B.C. and A.C.: “Before Chubb and After Chubb.”

He doesn’t mince words about his feelings toward his insurance carrier: “Their uncaring, unyielding, hardfisted tactics are responsible for the everyday waning of our spirit, being forced to live like this,” said the 83-year-old Meyer, a writer and producer who has worked on “Dragnet,” among other television shows and movies. “What Chubb is trying to do is put a Band-Aid on a cancer.”

Representatives of Chubb, a company that focuses on high-end properties, said the firm has tried to help the Meyers as the damages got sorted out, paying for their hotel rooms for more than two years plus hundreds of dollars in entertaining expenses.

“We are a caring company,” said Edward Spell, Chubb’s vice president, who added that the insurance carrier has spent more than $357,000 on the Meyers’ living costs. “We stand by our policyholders at all times. We stand by Mr. Meyer and we will continue to do so.” Spell said the Meyers were the only homeowners who sued Chubb out of the 1,700 Northridge earthquake claims the company handled.

When the temblor hit at 4:31 a.m. Jan. 17, 1994, cabinets around the Meyers’ house came crashing down. Windows broke, floors tilted. “The kitchen was a mess,” said Doris Meyer, 71, who was a longtime staffer for former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. After sweeping up broken debris and patching the walls, the Meyers thought they would be OK.

“We didn’t understand the enormity of the damage,” Stanley Meyer said. Soon more cracks stretched along the walls. Doors refused to close. After a few weeks, they moved out of their $2-million house to let a contractor make some repairs. Chubb offered to put them up in comparable housing, but the Meyers volunteered to go to a hotel instead; they said they had thought they’d be right back.

Weeks stretched to months. The cracks reappeared as walls were patched and an engineer told them that the foundation, six feet above the water table, was not salvageable.

The Meyers’ insurance company disagrees. “There was some damage to the home and that requires repair work,” Spell said. “We do not agree that the entire home and foundation needs to be replaced.”

Chubb offered the Meyers $880,000. They sued.

The Meyers’ attorney William Shernoff, who also represents hundreds of plaintiffs suing State Farm Insurance over Northridge earthquake claims, said Chubb chose a quick fix to save money.

“What I have seen in the 300 people I represent is that many people’s lives are destroyed by the quake and then again by the insurance company they paid a premium for protection,” Shernoff said.

Spell said the method of repair Chubb recommended would have been safe and effective. “In the unlikely event that it would not have worked, we would have come down and replaced it,” he said.

In the meantime, the Meyers said life in their two hotel rooms has been far from relaxing or luxurious. The marching band at Santa Monica High School practices right behind the Doubletree. Conventions often pack the hotel and visitors bustle through the hallways. “It’s like a zoo,” Doris Meyer said.

They eat their meals--usually room service, when their children don’t bring takeout--at the small table in their room.

When Doris’ arthritis acts up, she paces the halls or goes down to the lobby and chats with the hotel staff. Stanley’s scripts are stuffed against the walls and his books pile up on the dressers. “It’s like I’m back in a college room,” he said.

Many would have called it quits after three months, much less three years.

“Why should I?” asked Stanley Meyer. “I paid for insurance all these years. They have an obligation. I don’t want anything more than what it costs to fix that house--not a dollar more or less.”

He estimates he and his wife have spent close to $1 million coping with their situation, including the cost of storing their boxed-up possessions and paying the public adjuster, lawyers, contractors, geologists and the recent hotel bills. In November, when Chubb calculated that the repairs the company suggested would have been completed, it stopped paying for the Meyers’ lodging, which amounted to about $8,000 a month for the suites alone.

The Meyers say the stress of combating their insurance company has taken its toll on their already-failing health. Over the years, Stanley has weathered bypass surgery and a host of other illnesses. Doris had had five strokes and suffers from arthritis.

Spell said the Meyers chose to remain in the hotel instead of asking for alternative accommodations. “I’m sure that living in a hotel has had some impact, but that was a choice they made,” he said. “I don’t think any conduct on the part of Chubb contributed to their health problems.”

Stanley Meyer bought their beach house for his wife as a gift a year and a half before the quake struck. “I wanted her to have a place to see the ocean, to watch the sunrise and the sunset,” he said.

“Peace and quiet--that’s what I miss,” sighed Doris Meyer.