Murphy Pipeline Contractors v. B.A. Wilson, Inc.; RLI Ins.Co.;City of Lawtey; Kelly Engineering, Inc.; NBE 2005, Inc.
Dec 10, 2008OUTCOME: Settlement over $ 2 Million on eve of Jury Trial
When we first met the mayor, clerk and city council for the City of Lawtey, they had expended over one million dollars on a 2.1 million dollar utility project funded by USDA Rural Development. The Cit ... y’s regular attorney wisely recognized the legal, financial and administrative complexities of the project called out for specialized legal help. He and the City called in our firm for representation to extract them from a construction project gone bad. Their project has been approximately half built; they had expended just over one million of their 2.1 million dollar budget; their contractor had walked off the job and their engineer had no answers. The general contractor and two subcontractors had sued the City for money damages. We defended the City from all claims, successfully managed the formal termination of the GC and initiated a claim against the GC's performance bond surety company. Later, we added claims against the design engineer for breach of contract and negligence in the design and construction administration of project. We worked closely and cooperatively with the City's regular attorney, City staff, mayor and commissioners. After two and a half years of discovery and trial preparation, we were set for a two-week jury trial in Bradford County when the defendants began making offers to settle with the City. We eventually obtained settlement payments to the City of $2.75 Million from the contractor, its performance bond surety and the design engineer. With the money recovered, the City was able to hire a new engineer and proceed with construction of their re-designed project with a new contractor.
