Judge clears Ellison for landing at night

Since winning his battle against San Jose International Airport's noise curfew, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's private jet has made no late-night visits, airport officials said yesterday.

In a ruling released this week, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel did not invalidate the airport's 17-year-old curfew that Ellison fought for more than a year.

But the judge said that its ban on planes weighing more than 75,000 pounds from landing between 11:30 p.m. and 6:30 a.m. was irrelevant to regulating nighttime noise. Ellison's jet exceeds the city's weight limit.

Fogel's eagerly anticipated ruling effectively ends a long, acrimonious public debate and legal wrangling between the billionaire CEO, who sought a waiver to the curfew, and San Jose city officials, who refused to give it.

In his ruling, Fogel suggested it is now time for both sides to bury the hatchet.

"It is regrettable that a dispute about one airplane has consumed so large a quantity of human and economic resources and that the parties have found compromise so difficult," he wrote. "The Court is hopeful that its decision might serve as the framework for a final resolution to this matter."

Attorney Edward P. Davis Jr., who represents Ellison, said the ruling is "exactly what we were looking for."

Davis said the city could have avoided the protracted legal battle because Fogel's ruling is nearly identical to a proposal Ellison submitted prior to filing the lawsuit that led to the judges decision. Davis said Ellison's jet flies into the airport during curfew hours no more than twice a month and usually less.

San Jose city officials had a mixed reaction to the ruling.

"We're disappointed, but if there is a silver lining, it's that the curfew remains intact," said City Attorney Richard Doyle. "The court's decision is very narrow -- it does not open the floodgates."

The battle between the software tycoon and city leaders began in 1999, when city officials accused Ellison of routinely flouting the airport curfew by landing his 90,500-pound Gulfstream V aircraft at all hours, over their objections. Ellison, in turn, accused the city of having discriminatory rules and holding billionaire-bashing press conferences.

Ellison took the issue to court in January 2000, suing the city, which in turn countersued Ellison. Ellison claimed his plane was quieter than many smaller planes that are exempt from the curfew; the city countered that the Gulfstream V was nevertheless too heavy to win an exemption. Ellison claimed his plane normally lands at the airport with minimal fuel, bringing it below the maximum 75,000 pounds needed for an exemption; the city responded again that the plane was too heavy to be exempt from the curfew.

In April, Fogel asked San Jose to consider again giving Ellison a waiver, but the city said doing so could force the city to allow fleets of commercial jumbo jets to roar into the airport in the wee hours. Fogel responded by warning that he might have to toss out the curfew all together.

Fogel's ruling stopped short of that. He rejected the city's concerns about opening floodgates, saying commercial planes already are disqualified from the kind of curfew exemptions Ellison sought. So long as a plane meets the city's noise requirements and is noncommercial, Fogel ruled, it should be eligible for a waiver.

"The curfew is in place. The commercial jets are still subject to the curfew," Fogel said. "This is very limited and at this point allows only one jet -- and that's Larry Ellison's jet -- to come in."

The ruling effectively settles the main issue in the lawsuit filed in January 2000 against the city by Wing and a Prayer Inc., the company that operates Ellison's personal jet.

E-mail Matthew B. Stannard at mstannard@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle