House flipper sues San Francisco for alleged retaliation over FBI probe  

A house flipper has accused employees in San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection of retaliating against him for his cooperation in an FBI probe that led to a prison sentence for former building inspector Bernard Curran. 

The plaintiff, Patrick Gallagher, is described in court records as a “veteran in the construction industry for over 45 years,” according to a complaint filed on July 19 in a San Francisco court. In his lawsuit, Gallagher says that city inspectors subjected him and his workers to “unwarranted threats and harassment” while performing renovations on 200 Naples Street, a three-bedroom, three-bath home in the Excelsior District. 

Last month, Curran was sentenced to one year in prison for taking cash payments to approve building permits. He pleaded guilty to two counts of accepting gratuity payments in December. 

Gallagher claims that Curran told him to hire Rodrigo Santos, a former DBI employee turned civil engineer, in order to get the permit for the Naples Street property. In his plea agreement, Curran admitted that he received illegal gifts from Santos.

The arrangement didn’t work for Gallagher.

“Work that was supposed to take approximately two weeks turned into 10 months. Santos continually delayed the project and kept demanding more money from plaintiff (Gallagher) for specious and unnecessary work. By the time Santos had completed his drawings for the project, they were completely wrong and called for more work than was necessary for a home that size. Plaintiff at this point had paid Santos approximately $13,000 in fees and wasted a significant amount of time and resources for work that was essentially useless,” the lawsuit reads. 

Curran and Santos are both defendants in the lawsuit. Other named arties include the city and county of San Francisco; building inspectors Joe Duffy, Kevin Birmingham and Mauricio Hernandez; and Planning Department employees Natalia Kwaitkowska and William Hughen. According to Patrick Hannan, a DBI spokesperson, the city has already been served the complaint.

In 2021, the FBI interviewed Gallagher about his interactions with Curran, according to the lawsuit. At around that time, Gallagher entered escrow to sell the Naples Street property. The lawsuit claims that the deal was derailed because DBI employees, who supposedly became aware of his discussions with the FBI, cited him for violations relating to an expired permit and an illegal downstairs unit. 

Gallagher alleges that the issuance of violations was retaliatory, with DBI inspectors saying that a certificate of completion for the property, which was signed by Curran, was void because it was not filed properly. Gallagher claims that the city’s Board of Supervisors later facilitated a meeting between him and DBI.  

“Duffy … expressed to plaintiff (Gallagher) during this meeting that he had no doubt that plaintiff had spoken to the FBI concerning his dealings with Curran and Santos. … The city’s retaliation against plaintiff was unequivocal at this point,” the complaint reads. 

“This allegation is absolutely false,” Hannan of the DBI said in a statement. “Mr. Gallagher’s building is not code compliant. According to our records, his building’s non-compliant conditions go beyond the Department of Building Inspection’s (DBI) jurisdiction. Mr. Gallagher’s building also has outstanding issues with the Planning Department and the Department of Public Works.”

 A whistleblower report, which was discussed in a 2019 Board of Appeals hearing, detailed Curran’s approval of questionable projects. In one example, Curran supposedly failed to write up the owner of 571 Myra Way, in the San Francisco neighborhood of Miraloma, for “falsification of foundation plans.” This caused DBI to review several projects that Curran had approved. 

In his lawsuit, Gallagher seeks an unspecified amount of compensatory damages and a court order prohibiting the city from allegedly infringing on his rights in the future.