Olney Earthworks Inc. v. Community Asphalt Corp. & Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America
Dec 13, 2013
OUTCOME: Final Judgment in our client's favor for over $930,000. Adding our client's claims for attorneys fees and costs, obtained a total recovery of $1.375 Million.
Won two-week jury trial in state Circuit Court. Our client was a major subcontractor for storm water drainage system on a $55 million FDOT project in Brevard County - the widening
and improvement o...f Palm Bay Road (also known as County Road 516) which took place during 2008, 2009 and 2010. At the end of the project, FDOT discovered extensive cracks and defects in the concrete pipe system. GC made a claim against our client for $700,000. Our client maintained that the GC's heavy construction activities had damaged the pipe. Additionally, we made a claim for the disruption, interference and acceleration or our planned construction schedule. GC disregarded and ignored the designer's MOT and sequencing plans.
OUTCOME: Obtained Final Judgment for our client after a 2-week Jury Trial; Prevailed again at the contested Retrial before the trial judge; prevailed after two post-trial appeals; Total recovery: $1,697,430.
Our client was a stucco subcontractor (EWI)who was owed money for work done on a luxury condo building in Flagler County. The Tennessee Contractor (Spectrum) we sued prefered to go to Arbitration. We... obtained a trial court ruling denying Arbitration. Defendant Spectrum appealed to the Fifth DCA, claiming the construction contract documents included clauses to which the parties agreed to Arbitration. Spectrum preferred arbitration because it gave them procedural and legal advantages over EWI. After lengthy written briefs and oral argument before the appellate court, we obtained another legal ruling in our favor, keeping the case in Florida State court and out of Arbitration. [Spectrum v EWI, 917 So.2d 377 (Fla 5th DCA 2005). We returned to the trial level court where, after a two-week jury trial, we obtained a Final Judgment for EWI of over One Million dollars. The trial required expert witness testimony on subjects including construction schedule analysis, accelleration of the schedule and claims for inefficiencies in the manner the contractor directed subcontractor EWI to perform the stucco work. We also defeated Spectrum's counter-claim of over One Million claimed against EWI and its performance bond surety company. Then the defendants appealed on five grounds, again to Florida's 5th District Court of Appeals. Spectrum lost on four grounds, but did prevail on their claim that EWI had released and assigned any claim it had to Special damages incurred by Spectrum's surety, RLI. The case was remanded to the trial level for a new trial on damages. Spectrum Interiors v. Exterior Walls, 2 So.3d 1093 (5th DCA 2009).
At the non-jury trial, our client won again; our opponents appealed again. On June 17, 2011, the appellate court affirmed the trial judgment awarding our client over $500,000.00. The appellated court also sent this case back to the trial level for a determination of how much additional money will be awarded to our client, EWI. Spectrum Interiors v. Exterior Walls, 65 So.3d 543 (Fla 5th DCA 2011).
Litigation
Murphy Pipeline Contractors v. B.A. Wilson, Inc.; RLI Ins.Co.;City of Lawtey; Kelly Engineering, Inc.; NBE 2005, Inc.
Dec 10, 2008
OUTCOME: 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.
Litigation
Water Equipment Services, Inc. v. Sarasota County, Baskerville Donovan, Inc. & Kert Jensen, P.E.
Dec 02, 2008
OUTCOME: Won 3 wk Jury Trial against owner + Designer
Our client, Water Equipment Services, Inc. (“WES”) entered into a contract with Sarasota County (SC) for the construction of a public wastewater collection and transmission system. During construction ...of the project, the failure of the SC to properly administer the contract and the errors and omissions of the County’s engineer, Baskerville-Donovan, Inc. (“BDI”), in designing and directing the installation of the wastewater system resulted in catastrophic financial losses for WES. We sued SC for breach of contract and failure to comply with the Prompt Payment Act, Fla. Stat. § 218.70, et seq. We also sued BDI and the design engineer, Kurt Jensen, for professional negligence. After a three-week jury trial with multiple expert witnesses on both sides, the jury returned a verdict in favor of WES, awarding them money damages from both SC and BDI and Jensen. The jury specifically found, among other things, that SC breached the contract with WES, and that WES did not breach the contract. Part of the trial involved WES defeating owner SC's counterclaim of over $3.7 Million. In the Final Judgment, the court awarded to WES damages from all three defendants totaling over $1.35 Million dollars. Although the engineers appealed the judgment, Florida's Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the case completely without a written opinion (PCA).
Litigation
K.C. Petroleum, Inc. v Hedin Construction & KNK Ventures
Jul 29, 2003
OUTCOME: Won Jury Trial for Construction Lien Forclosure
Our client was a subcontractor who built most of a new commercial convenience store and gas station for a private owner in Vero Beach, FL. When the Owner and General Contractor refused to pay the cont...ract balance owed, we filed a construction lien in the public records and filed a lawsuit to foreclose the lien in State Circuit Court. The defendants filed a counterclaim, alleging that the lien was fraudulent, that our client breached the contract and owed them money for defective construction. After the defendants refused all reasonable settlement offers, we proceeded to trial by jury, which awarded our client every penny claimed. After trial, the judge also ordered the defendants to pay all our client's attorney fees and costs expended. Defendants paid the judgment in full without an appeal
