$1.3M Judgment: San Francisco Code Violation Case
Table of Contents
Case Background
A high-profile legal struggle that the City and County of San Francisco and the People of the State of California had pursued against several Defendants, including property owners and building consultants, finally closed with a significant financial settlement. The case, which centered on repeated, unlawful building activity across the city, formally ended years of contentious litigation.
The City, driven by its City Attorney’s Code Enforcement Team, originally launched the civil action to target a pattern of alleged violations involving state consumer protection laws, the San Francisco Municipal Code, and fundamental public safety regulations. The Complaint, which the City filed in 2018, named multiple parties, including the consulting firm Santos & Urrutia Associates, Inc., and individuals Rodrigo Santos, Albert Urrutia, Kevin J. O'Connor, Peter McKenzie, Dongwei Wang, Daisy Zou, and Veronica Wang. The legal team had been seeking to compel the Defendants to correct extensive, dangerous work and pay substantial penalties.
Cause
The central dispute involved claims that the Defendants either performed or directed significant construction, remodeling, and structural work without obtaining mandatory permits and proper oversight from the Department of Building Inspection (DBI). The Plaintiffs alleged this conduct showed a clear pattern of negligence and unlawful business practices. This systematic avoidance of the regulatory process had compromised the legal framework designed to protect buildings and residents.
Injury
The Plaintiffs primarily focused their argument on the severe risk the public had faced. By sidestepping inspections, the Defendants’ unpermitted work created potential structural hazards and unsafe living conditions, which the City classified as a public nuisance. The legal action intended to recover damages for the City’s administrative costs and to enforce laws that the Defendants had repeatedly ignored, actions that had directly threatened the integrity of the City's regulatory oversight.
Damages Sought
When the Plaintiffs initiated the lawsuit, they had asked the Court for two main types of relief. First, they sought an immediate and permanent injunction to halt all illegal work and force the Defendants to demolish or legally correct the unauthorized structures. Second, the City had pursued significant civil penalties for every single code violation, which could have reached millions of dollars, in addition to demanding full reimbursement for the considerable costs and attorneys’ fees the City had incurred during its comprehensive investigation.
Key Arguments and Proceedings
The lawsuit, case number CGC-18-569923, began in September 2018. Over the following years, the City’s attorneys compiled extensive evidence, including numerous investigative reports and code violation histories from various properties across the county. This documentation had clearly detailed the scope and nature of the Defendants’ non-compliant activities.
Legal Representation
Plaintiff(s): City and County of San Francisco | the People of the State of California.
· Counsel for Plaintiff(s): Renée E. Rosenblit | Hunter W. Sims III | David Chiu.
· Experts for Plaintiff(s): Mauricio Hernandez
Defendant(s): Santos & Urrutia Associates, Inc | Rodrigo Santos | Albert Urrutia | Kevin J. O'Connor | Peter McKenzie | Dongwei Wang | Daisy Zou | Veronica Wang and others
· Counsel for Defendant(s): R. Stephen Goldstein
Key Arguments or Remarks by Counsel
Claims
Plaintiffs’ counsel maintained that the Defendants had intentionally chosen to bypass safety regulations for financial gain. They asserted that this conduct constituted a breach of public trust, posed a risk to residents, and severely undermined the City's ability to maintain safe building standards. The City’s legal team had presented a cohesive narrative of systemic misconduct throughout the proceedings.
Defense
Attorneys representing the various Defendants mounted a vigorous defense, which included outright denials of the core allegations contained in the Complaint. In their formal answers, defense teams often argued that the Plaintiffs had failed to state a proper claim and that the City lacked the necessary legal standing to pursue certain damages. They had also lodged several affirmative defenses, claiming that any alleged issues were either the City's responsibility or had not caused the public harm the City claimed.
Court Judgment
On October 22, 2025, the Superior Court of California resolved the case with a final, decisive financial ruling against the Defendants. This resolution, formally entered as an Amended Judgment by Judge Garrett L. Wong, confirmed that the Plaintiffs the City and County of San Francisco and the People of the State of California had prevailed in the action.
The Court ordered the Defendants, including Santos & Urrutia Associates, Inc., and the associated individual parties, to pay a final total monetary award of $1,300,807.00. This judgment was composed of three specific financial components that the Court had determined were appropriate penalties and costs for the violations the Defendants had committed:
A. Civil Penalties: The Court imposed $755,000.00 in civil penalties, acknowledging the serious and widespread nature of the Municipal and State Code violations.
B. Costs of Investigation: The City recovered $105,807.00 to account for the substantial resources and staff time the Code Enforcement Team and other City departments had expended during their multi-year investigation of the defendants' unpermitted projects.
C. Attorneys' Fees: The Plaintiffs were awarded $440,000.00 to cover the significant legal expenses they had borne throughout the extended civil action.
The total of $1,300,807.00 represented a major victory for the City, confirming the Defendants' liability for the unlawful business practices and code violations that had created a public safety risk in San Francisco. The judgment further decreed that the Plaintiffs were entitled to recover all future statutory costs, fees, and disbursements.