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County leaves little to chance in suit
By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer O.J. Simpson did it. So did Valessa Robinson. Last week, so did Pinellas County. Commissioners agreed to spend up to $100,000 on jury consultants. It's only the second time the county has ever made such a move, which is more linked in the public mind to high-profile criminal and celebrity trials than to local government. But that money is pocket change compared with what Pinellas already has spent on a case that is set for trial in April. Some $2.2-million on private lawyers. More than $1.2-million on a platoon of expert witnesses. That's not even counting the cost of the time spent by the county's own lawyers and engineers on the case, which fills 61 legal files already taking up several feet of shelf space in the clerk's office. But then, even those millions are just a fraction of what's at stake: More than $20-million. The county could lose that much if a jury rules that Pinellas officials fired Great Monument Construction Co. unfairly in 1994. "It's a lot of money, and we need to approach it in a very businesslike manner," said Commissioner Karen Seel. While the county risks losing millions, county staffers hope to win big. Pinellas has countersued, trying to gain $10-million to $15-million in damages from Great Monument and its insurer, Reliance Insurance Co. (Great Monument's lawyer, Tampa attorney William Frye, said that the chances of Pinellas getting that money are small. Even if the county wins, the companies are no longer doing business.) In August 1993, the county hired the Tampa firm for $23.5-million to expand its wastewater treatment plant at South Cross Bayou. But in December 1994, county officials said the company's work was so sloppy that they had no choice but to fire it. Great Monument filed suit before the year was out. The lawsuit seeks more than almost any other lawsuit ever filed against Pinellas. For all the millions already spent, the heart of Pinellas' defense rests in a slim manila folder that's crumpled around the edges. Pick Talley, the county's utilities director, flipped open the folder last week with the air of a man who is sure he's right. Inside was a sheaf of photos taken by engineers hired to watch over the project. Picture after picture shows flaws in the work Great Monument was doing. Gaping holes in concrete walls, pilings and pillars. Pipes that were supposed to meet but didn't. Flooring that was unevenly poured, leaving scarred concrete and exposed rebar. "You would never pour a floor like that," Talley said. But Larry Harris, the company's chief operating officer, said those pictures are misleading. The problems they showed were minor, he said, and the company could easily have fixed them. "We don't claim to be perfect by any means," Harris said. But "if you were ever wanting to take a stroll around a construction site, I could show you photographs that look just like the ones you saw."
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From the Times South Pinellas desks |
