ENCINITAS — Pat Davis remembers Aug. 2, 2019, with painful clarity.
“Our chairs were this close,” Davis said, holding his hands about a foot apart.
What began as a family day at Grandview Beach turned into a scene of unthinkable devastation when a bluff collapse sent sandstone boulders tumbling down to the beach below, claiming the lives of Davis’s daughter, Annie Clave, 35, wife, Julie Davis, 65, and sister-in-law Elizabeth Charles, 62.
Davis, seated just feet away, tried to lift the multi-ton rocks trapping his wife before digging a hollow in the sand around her head so she could breathe, according to court documents. Davis then turned to Annie, his youngest daughter, cradling her head in his lap as they awaited help.
First responders eventually pulled Julie and Annie from the rubble and rushed them to the hospital, where both later succumbed to their injuries. Elizabeth was likely killed instantly, her body fragmented underneath a mound of heavy clastic stones.
In the span of moments, a simple beach outing celebrating Elizabeth’s recovery from breast cancer had turned into a nightmare. Davis, a retired dentist and longtime Encinitas resident, was left to grapple with unfathomable loss and a tremendous sense of urgency to make the city’s beaches safer.
“It’s not a situation of if it could happen again, it’s a situation of when it’s going to happen again,” he said. “And I think there are so many things that can be done, and should be done, by the city and the state to lessen the chances of people being injured.”
In 2020, the Davis family sued the City of Encinitas, the State of California, Leucadia Seabluffe Village Community Association and Seabreeze Management Company in a wrongful death suit claiming negligence and unsafe property conditions.
The complaint argued that years of groundwater seepage issues — from poor storm drain management, irrigation issues at Seabluffe condos, and the city’s reconstruction of a beach access stairway — had significantly weakened the seaside cliff.
“This lawsuit was all about honoring Julie, Annie, and Elizabeth, and advocating for safety from the bluffs for all beachgoers here in California,” Davis said.
Since the lawsuit was filed in 2020, each of the four defendants filed motions for summary judgment — a request to end the case without a trial — seeking to dismiss it. In January 2021, the judge sided with the Davis family, tossing out the city and state’s natural condition immunity argument, which shields governments from liability for natural occurrences on public property.
By late 2023, the lawsuit seemed destined for trial. However, the parties announced a deal had been reached last week, potentially ending four years of litigation.
Reflecting on the case, Davis said the $32 million settlement represented something far more important than money.
“This settlement was by no means a victory for my family,” Davis said. “Annie, Julie and Elizabeth are greatly missed by my family every day, they were the glue that held our family together and made us so close.”
Davis emphasized that securing the city’s commitment to non-monetary safety measures was essential to prevent further tragedies.
Bibi Fell, the lead attorney representing the Davis family, echoed these sentiments, noting that the lawsuit’s purpose was to make the beach safer for everyone.
“It’s unfortunate that all people see is the dollar figure,” Fell said. “(The settlement) does not feel like the end; this feels like the very beginning of what we set out to do, which was to get attention and affect positive change.”
The beach safety measures agreed upon in the settlement reflect this focus. One of the most visible changes will be the addition of prominent signage warning of bluff collapse hazards at each access point along the Encinitas coastline.
At least one sign will feature a memorial for Julie, Annie, and Elizabeth, serving as both a warning and a tribute. Other measures include lifeguard training to help beach personnel understand and convey the potential dangers of the bluffs.
“Lifeguards will receive training on the dangers of bluff collapse … and how critically important it is to make sure that they’re getting the warnings out to people who they see dangerously close to the bluff,” Fell said.
While structural changes were beyond the settlement’s scope and required approval from the California Coastal Commission, Davis and Fell said they remain committed to pursuing further reforms. The commission’s “managed retreat” policy — which permits natural erosion without intervention — will continue to pose obstacles for Davis and other safety advocates.
The risks of bluff collapses have long been documented along this coastline. A 1985 memo from geologist Syd Willard Brown, uncovered during the lawsuit, advised the city against rebuilding the Grandview staircase after a prior collapse had caused injuries.
In the memo, Brown described the area as “hazardous,” warning of potential future injuries.
“It is my recommendation to not reinstitute public access down the bluff,” Brown wrote in the memo.
Despite the warning, the city rebuilt the staircase, inadvertently attracting more visitors to the base of the cliffs. The Brown memo became a key piece of evidence in the Davis family’s case, highlighting that the risks were known long before the 2019 tragedy.
Davis hopes the settlement’s safety provisions will help reduce future incidents but is clear-eyed about the work ahead. Even with the new measures, he said the shifting sands and erosive forces along the California coastline will continue challenging safety efforts.
Still, he said that through increased awareness and precautionary measures, he believes families can make informed choices when visiting the beach.
“If we can prevent just one more accident from happening, I would love to see that,” he said. “And if people knew the risks, [maybe] they wouldn’t sit so close to the bluffs.”
As the city begins implementing the new measures, Davis remains dedicated to honoring his family’s memory through advocacy. Every effort to raise public awareness of bluff hazards, he said, is a step toward preventing future tragedies.
“There’s no settlement that could ever replace my family,” Davis said. “I hope to do good with this in Julie, Annie, and Elizabeth’s memory. That’s what they would have wanted — for their lives to mean that no one else has to go through this.”
