No Relief For House Jack Lost

Remember the house that Jack owned?

Remember the city that flattened the house that Jack owned?

Remember the lawyer who sued the city that flattened the house that Jack owned?

I wrote about Jack Kline’s frustrations four years ago. Today I’m pleased to report that Jack won - sort of.

In a recent summary judgment hearing, a Superior Court judge ruled that Spokane’s code enforcers failed to properly notify Jack Kline before they demolished a burned house and undamaged garage he owned.

The problem now is getting the city to pay for its mistake.

Despite the ruling, Spokane’s legal eagles still won’t concede liability. Kline’s attorney, Chris Grimes, believes the city is stalling and even claiming to lose documents in hopes his client will finally give up and get lost.

“Jack really got shafted,” says Grimes. The city is “trying to weasel out of it.”

Kline wants $47,000 and change for his loss and legal fees.

As far as the city is concerned, Kline’s charred rental house wasn’t worth a lead nickel and code enforcers did him a favor in leveling the eyesore. Should the city persist, it could take another year for damages to be determined in a trial.

“Good thing I don’t need the money for a heart or a liver transplant,” deadpans Kline, 49. “They’re just trying to run me into the ground.”

As I described in the first column, Kline is a sweat-equity capitalist with a talent for turning cheap, shabby houses into profitable rentals. Back in the 1970s, Kline ended a hitch in the Air Force with $70 in his pocket and a million bucks worth of self-determination.

He bought his first fixer-upper and gradually increased the number to 19 rentals. When he isn’t tending to those, he works as a plumber on various commercial projects.

An imposing figure with shoulder-length hair and a silver-streaked beard, Kline clings to simple mountain man virtues: Don’t mess with me. I won’t mess with you.

The city messed with him.

The stage was set when an arsonist burned his rental at 1409 W. Spofford the night of Feb. 10, 1993. Kline suspects a former tenant he had evicted. No one was ever prosecuted.

Kline considered the house salvageable. He transformed a similarly scorched house and has photographs to prove it.

He put the project on hold while he wrangled with his insurance company.

After a neighbor complained, city building inspectors took a look and declared the place a nuisance. But all of the notices warning Kline to clean up the mess were sent to the uninhabitable shell.

The letters came back as undeliverable.

Want to get ahold of Kline? Open the telephone book. But the city got its erroneous address through the county assessor’s office. That’s standard policy. What the city didn’t do was to make any other reasonable effort to locate the man.

Kline didn’t know he had a problem until it was too late. On Oct. 14, 1994, the house was knocked down. Ditto the undamaged garage.

He discovered this one day driving past the site. Kline did a double take. “It was flatter than a critter,” he says.

Thus began Kline’s marathon legal journey to prove he had been wronged.

James Richman, an assistant city attorney, claims the city isn’t stalling or trying to weasel out of anything.

Yet consider this: Days after Superior Court Judge Greg Sypolt ruled in Kline’s favor, Richman called Grimes asking for a settlement proposal. Grimes obliged. He sent Richman a fax and letter.

Grimes didn’t hear anything back. Two weeks later, Grimes says he ran into Richman in a skywalk and asked, What gives?

“Richman told me he lost them both,” says Grimes.

Aw come on. Did a city attorney really lose Grimes’ letter and fax?

“No comment,” says Richman.

I guess that ends today’s segment of “Your City Government in Action.”