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Obituary

Lawyer John Allen, water warrior, dies

Talent and toughness were traits of the attorney known for waging Pinellas' court battles over water.

By CRAIG BASSE
Published December 8, 2004

GULFPORT - Lawyer John T. Allen Jr. liked to tell this story.

He and a friend were traveling in Pasco County and stopped at a gas station. The attendant, noting the Pinellas County tag on the car, asked the friend if he knew John Allen Jr.

"We hate him up here," the attendant said. "He takes all of our water."

Mr. Allen, who represented Pinellas County in court battles over water, died Monday (Dec. 6, 2004) at home. He was 69. His son said he died from injuries received in an auto accident last week.

Former County Commissioner Charles Rainey said Mr. Allen "made a great contribution to Pinellas County. I can't say enough about his ability.

"... We had only two words for him: Don't lose. And he didn't. You can't say much more about an attorney than that."

Mr. Allen was hired in 1977 to help guard Pinellas County's right to draw water from Pasco and other counties. He pressed a controversial pollution case against a landfill operation in northwest Hillsborough County and went after the maker of a water pipeline in Pinellas County.

Along the way, Mr. Allen angered people, including some Pinellas officials who raised objections over his legal bills. "I seem to engender in people a great desire to make personal attacks on me," he said in 1988. "I'm paid to do a job, and I do that."

Once described in a newspaper as tall and self-possessed, he hardly seemed the type to provoke strong feelings. He rarely gestured or raised his voice.

A native of St. Petersburg, Mr. Allen was a basketball star at Admiral Farragut Academy in the early 1950s. He averaged 21 points a game his senior year. But he had to turn down college scholarship offers because of a muscular problem around his eyes, causing double vision.

That prevented his following the sports trail blazed by his father, Johnny Allen, a big-league baseball pitcher. Johnny Allen won 142 games and lost 75 in a 13-year career with five different teams.

Mr. Allen said his father did not want him to lead a life in baseball.

Wallace Pope, a Clearwater lawyer who opposed Mr. Allen in court, said once he made "every case into World War III."

Mr. Allen conceded that he went at things hard.

"I'm not trying to make friends of the other side or stand around and chew the fat with them and tell them how great a lawyer they are after the hearing," Mr. Allen said at the time.

Mr. Allen received a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Florida and a law degree from Stetson University College of Law.

His father died in 1959 at age 54. A daughter, Cathy, died of complications from Hodgkin's disease in February 1987 at age 18. Survivors include a son, John III, St. Petersburg; a daughter, Linda Beard, Fort Collins, Colo.; and three grandchildren.

Friends may call from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at Anderson-McQueen Funeral & Cremation Centers-N.E. St. Petersburg, 2201 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. A funeral will be at 10 a.m. Saturday at the funeral home.

Information from Times files was used in this obituary.

[Last modified December 7, 2004, 23:47:14]