Holding a former schoolteacher and her relatives responsible for one of Santa Clara County’s biggest wildfires, a civil jury has ordered them to pay a San Jose man $750,000 for the loss of valuable papers penned by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein that went up in smoke.
The fire that cremated the papers erupted in September 2007 after former teacher Margaret Pavese left unattended a 55-gallon metal barrel she was illegally using to burn paper plates.
The Lick fire burned 47,760 acres — an area nearly twice the size of San Francisco — and destroyed four residences and 20 outbuildings, primarily in Henry Coe State Park.
Friday’s verdict on grounds of general negligence against Pavese, her husband, Lawrence, and her father-in-law, Ernest, came as a bittersweet relief to San Jose State chemistry professor Dan Straus. He inherited the Einstein papers from his father, renowned mathematician Ernst Straus, a close friend and colleague of the Nobel laureate. The trove included calculations jotted down on onionskin and on an envelope.
“I’d much rather have those papers,” Straus said. “But there has been justice.”
The Paveses did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment. However, attorney David Spini, who represented Ernest Pavese, said he plans to seek a new trial on the grounds that the $750,000 award is excessive. If that fails, he plans to appeal.
“It’s a troubling verdict to hold people who didn’t even start the fire responsible for it,” Spini said. “My client owns only 2.45 percent of the (400 acre) property and he didn’t even know he did until the lawsuit was filed.”
Margaret Pavese accepted sole responsibility for accidentally starting the fire, Spini said. The former Aromas-San Juan Bautista School District teacher pleaded no contest in 2009 to one misdemeanor count of failing to exercise reasonable care in the disposal of flammable materials to prevent causing an uncontrolled fire. Pavese completed 250 hours of community service and paid $200,000 in restitution to three fire victims, including about $40,000 to Straus for the loss of his two small cabins, an outbuilding and a trailer.
But Straus’ lawyer, Dean Rossi, said the jury had a broader view of who was responsible. During the four-day trial, Rossi successfully contended that all the Paveses knew about the burn barrel and the risks it presented.
“Margaret lit the match, but we were able to convince the jury that the Paveses were all negligent,” Rossi said. “We really felt we lost a historical treasure. Not only that, but it was also a connection to Dan’s father.”
Margaret Pavese no longer faces a $16 million lawsuit the state filed, in part, to recover the cost of fighting the blaze. The state dropped it after the criminal case was resolved.
After Straus pays his legal expenses, he said he will share whatever is left over of the award with his niece, a 21-year-old hairdresser in Wichita, Kan., and an 18-year-old nephew, an art student in Santa Rosa. He also plans to pay college expenses for the woman who took care of his mother before she died.
Straus still has one original Einstein document given to him as a child. In spring 2007, he brought all but the one document to his weekend retreat in the heart of Coe park — where he had a solar-powered copier — because he said it offered a peaceful place, miles down a dirt road, to sort them.
The surviving document is a handwritten, original poem Einstein wrote in German congratulating Straus’ parents on his birth in 1954. The lyricism is lost in translation, but the affection Einstein had for his old colleague Ernst Straus shines through.
“This is what I wish: Let Daniel be like his father, thoroughly intelligent and not less joyous. Yours, A. Einstein.”
Straus said he’s learned his lesson from the fire: “I told the jury I keep it in a bank vault now.”
Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482.
