Victory blossoms for rose grower.

Byline: BILL BISHOP The Register-Guard

After 11 years and six appeals, Chase Gardens won its David-vs.-Goliath legal battle against Northwest Natural Gas Co. with a ruling Thursday by the Oregon Supreme Court reinstating a $1.9 million jury verdict against the gas company.

In the decision, its second in the case, the state's highest court said a Lane County Circuit Court jury was right when it found in 1995 that the gas company breached its duty to deal in good faith by filing a lien against the rose grower for an unpaid gas bill. The move came a few weeks before Chase Gardens would have harvested its $500,000 Valentine's Day rose crop.

The lien caused Chase Gardens' bank to freeze its line of credit, prompting the 100-year-old family-owned business to lay off its 22 employees and close in January 1991.

In earlier appeals, legal decisions favored first one side, then the other. With the latest ruling, no further appeal is possible.

But the victory is bittersweet for Bruce and Katherine Chase. The settlement doesn't come close to covering the family's losses, they said.

"I'm not going to give up my day job," said Bruce Chase, 70, who owned the business with his wife and their three children. He has worked part time as a maintenance man since Chase Gardens closed.

"At this point, after 11 years, you're afraid to think it might be over and you might have won," said Katherine Chase, 68. "It's hard to get over. You tell yourself it's in the past, but it's not easy to do."

A Northwest Natural spokesman said the company's lawyers hadn't yet reviewed the decision and could offer no comment.

Before Chase Gardens closed and filed the lawsuit in 1991, it operated a cut flower business in 1 million square feet of greenhouses along Centennial Boulevard near Interstate 5.

The lawsuit claimed that the gas company acted unfairly when it placed a lien against the company over an unpaid $49,000 bill and demanded a $100,000 payment to remove the lien.

In past years, according to the suit, the gas company recognized the cyclical nature of the cut flower business and worked with the company as it struggled to keep up with payments.

Northwest Natural argued in court that it only did what any creditor is entitled to do: attempt to collect from a delinquent debtor.

In 1995, a jury awarded Chase Gardens $1.9 million in damages, plus another $3 million in punitive damages - one of the largest such awards in Lane County history - but legal appeals threw out the punitive damage award.

The business closure cost Bruce and Katherine Chase everything, including a new house they were building at the time. Their son, Bruce Allen Chase, also lost the opportunity to execute a new business plan to move the company from the collapsing cut flower market into the lucrative nursery business, the Chases said. He now works at two jobs in Portland.

The company lost its greenhouses, 60 acres of valuable land and 500,000 rose bushes. A massive apartment complex now stands where their greenhouses once did.

Before the ruling Thursday, Katherine Chase said the couple could barely afford drugs prescribed to treat her multiple sclerosis and had to consider cutting back on buying them. Now, Bruce Chase says he'll be able to modify their house with ramps and other improvements to accommodate his wife's disability.

"Justice delayed is justice denied," Bruce Chase said. "It affected a lot of people's lives, a lot of local businesses depended on our business, and a lot of vendors got hurt."

Through it all, the Chases said they had a lot of support from the community and from their lawyers, the Eugene firm of Luvaas Cobb Richards & Fraser.

"They worked not only very hard, but with passion," Katherine Chase said. "It's their loyalty and doggedness that has seen this through. We didn't have the money to stick in there, but they stuck in there."

Joel DeVore, one of the firm's lawyers on the case, said the verdict totals nearly $3 million because the gas company must pay 9 percent annual interest on the $1.9 million verdict from 1995 to now.

"The Chases showed a lot of determination and heart to persevere," he said.

Bruce Chase, the grandson of company founder Frank Chase, said the ruling renewed his family's faith in the legal system.

"I thought it was done after the jury decision," he said. "You kind of lose your faith in the system when this theory about the judgment of your peers doesn't hold up - especially when you feel you've been arrogantly wronged."

CHASE GARDENS HISTORY

1889: Frank Chase buys 60 acres east of Eugene to grow vegetables to sell to the University of Oregon. Business grows to have the largest greenhouses west of the Mississippi. Vegetables are main crop through World War II, then flowers. In the 1940s and '50s, company shipped more than 10 million gardenias annually.

1989: Bruce Chase, grandson of founder, sells 18.5 acres to Portland developer Patrick Mulqueeney for 336-unit Chase Village apartment complex. Greenhouses formerly heated by wood now heated by gas.

1991: Domestic cut flower growers face new competition from Central American growers. Chase Gardens prepares new business plan, but falls behind on gas bills. Northwest Natural Gas Co. of Portland files lien, which leads to business closure and bankruptcy. Business sold at sheriff's sale to cover $1 million mortgage. Chase sues gas company, claiming unlawful interference in its business and breach of contract.

1995: After appeals to the state Public Utilities Commission and the Oregon Court of Appeals, the lawsuit goes to trial in Lane County Circuit Court. A jury awards $5 million to Chase Gardens, including $3 million in punitive damages for business interference. Gas company appeals.

1997: State Court of Appeals upholds jury's award. Gas company appeals to Oregon Supreme Court.

1999: State Supreme Court overturns jury award for punitive damages, returns issue of breach of contract to the appeals court for further review. The appeals court throws out breach of contract issue, basing its decision on the high court's ruling concerning the punitive damage award for the gas company's alleged interference in Chase's business. Chase appeals again to the Oregon Supreme Court.

2002: Oregon Supreme Court rules the appeals court misread its opinion regarding breach of contract issues and rules in favor of Chase on the breach of contract issue. Ruling is final, with no appeal to federal courts possible because the case involved state issues. Gas company must pay $1.9 million, plus 9 percent annual interest from 1995, to Chase Gardens for failing to deal in good faith.

- The Register-Guard