In colorful fashion, attorney Paul Antinori files a motion on behalf of Egypt Lake area homeowners. Tampa Electric Co. should pay them $25-million for punitive damages, he says.
By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer
Published July 15, 2005
TAMPA - An attorney for some of the residents protesting the installation of giant power poles in front of their homes is upping the ante in their quest for redress.
Attorney Paul Antinori filed a motion Thursday on behalf of Egypt Lake area homeowners, accusing Tampa Electric Co. of gross negligence and seeking punitive damages up to $25-million.
In his trademark style, Antinori has loaded the request with adjectives and adverbs to highlight what he deems an injustice to his clients. He claims Tampa Electric is guilty of gross negligence, in part, due to its failure to reasonably address the residents' concerns after installing 125-foot-tall transmission poles outside their homes two years ago.
"We've reviewed the motions and found them to be very colorfully worded," said Tampa Electric spokesman Ross Bannister. "While they are colorfully worded, they are essentially meritless."
Here's the story line, as Antinori weaves it through his eight-page motion:
Kirby and Sitka streets, where the poles were installed, are part of a "well maintained, pristine residential neighborhood" with previously "quiet, oak-shaded, peaceful, narrow, winding streets." Here, residents enjoyed the seclusion from the "madding crowd and hectic pace" of other neighborhoods.
Without notice, Tampa Electric erected its poles, or "monoliths" - described as "giant," "obnoxious," "unsightly" - that "dwarf" his clients' homes and carry a " "super highway' of bulk electricity."
Tampa Electric supervisors should have recognized "the massive structures are so patently and visibly out of scale with everything in the neighborhood," underlined for effect. "Only a willfully insensitive person who is not dim-witted would refuse to know or care that the residents along the narrow streets would vehemently resent the giant monoliths in front of their homes."
His experts say the location of the poles violates county development rules and could have been erected on busier streets nearby that Tampa Electric passed on for "feigned and invalid excuses." And despite protests before the work was completed, and now having had some residents move from the neighborhood as a result, the utility has proposed only half-measure remedies.
Those factors constitute gross negligence as an ongoing injury to his clients' rights, not to mention "callous indifference," Antinori argues. Under the law, he said, a jury could award his clients up to $500,000 apiece in punitive damages, on top of compensatory damages for things such as diminished property values and emotional distress.
"It's an extreme measure and an extreme remedy, but we have no recourse because of their refusal to ameliorate the situation," Antinori said.
Antinori said a judge will have to rule on the motion, which would require an amendment to his original suit. If granted, that will have another effect: The likely delay of the trial scheduled to start in September.
