Calling the damage a “historic nuisance,” the Japanese American National Museum is suing the city of Los Angeles for the cleanup costs of 30,000 gallons of sewage that flooded the building in 2024.
The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit suits negligence, private nuisance and trespass. The suit seeks unspecified damages.
A representative for the City Attorney’s Office did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the suit brought Tuesday.
According to the complaint, sewage pipes managed by the city became severely clogged last June.
“Unfortunately for the Japanese American National Museum, which occupied a low point near the blockage, the raw sewage had only one place to go, the JANM basement,” the suit states.
Some 30,000 gallons of “putrid blackwater” overcame JANM’s back-flow valves and flooded not only the Little Tokyo building’s basement, but also the elevator mechanical room, an elevator car, restrooms and the elevator hydraulic system, the suit alleges.
JANM spent thousands of dollars paying plumbers to remove the sewage and restore the Central Avenue building to what it was before the flooding, the suit states.
The sewage contamination endangered the health and safety of JANM’s tenants, employees and visitors, interfered with JANM’s use of the property and created dangerous conditions, according to the complaint.
“To date, the city of Los Angeles has done nothing to compensate JANM for this historic nuisance,” the suit alleges.