Pinellas settling lawsuit for $3.8-million

The eight-year battle began when the county fired a construction company in the middle of a $23.5-million contract.

By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 1, 2003

Pinellas County has given $3.8-million to a construction company it fired in 1994 to settle a legal case that it has fought for eight years.

The settlement is one of the largest in more than 15 years, costing the county $4-million in legal fees, top county lawyers said Friday.

But continuing to fight the lawsuit could have cost the county another $1.5-million to take the case to trial and would have been a risky move, since the construction company was seeking $39-million in damages, county leaders said.

"No settlement is perfect," said county Commissioner Ken Welch. "But on balance, it's in the best interests of the county . . . This thing has dragged out for a while."

The stakes were so high that the county hired a jury consultant, staged three separate mock trials to help lawyers prepare the case and spent more than $1.2-million on expert witnesses.

A decade ago, Pinellas hired a Tampa firm, Great Monument Construction Co., for $23.5-million to expand its wastewater treatment plant at South Cross Bayou. But the county fired Great Monument in 1994, saying its work was sloppy and substandard. County pictures show holes in concrete walls, uneven floors and pipes that didn't meet.

Great Monument sued, saying the construction problems were the county's fault. The company said the county's practice of injecting partially treated wastewater into the ground at the plant made the site unstable.

The company said being fired forced it out of business. The county countersued, saying the company's sloppy work cost it more. It brought another company in to finish the job.

Larry Harris, the company's chief operating officer, could not be reached Friday. His attorney, Tampa lawyer William Frye, would not comment.

Under the settlement, the company received $3.8-million from Pinellas and another $875,000 from the county's engineering firm. But according to legal records made public this week, the county owed Great Monument $2-million for work the company had performed but not been paid for, as well as the company's retainer fee and interest.

In private meetings, commissioners concluded that if they continued to fight, they would end up spending more than the settlement amount.

One reason the legal fight cost so much was because Great Monument wasn't interested in settling for a "reasonable" figure until last year, said Joe Morrissey, senior assistant county attorney.

"We never had an offer that was close to reasonable," Morrissey said. "It was really fairly late in the game when the numbers started to come down."

Legal records say Great Monument had wanted $17-million to settle. Last spring, its offer dropped to $8.5-million then to $5.5-million last fall. The final agreement called for about $4.7-million from the county and its engineering firm.

The money from the settlement will come from county sewer funds.

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