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Now after a year of mediation, commissioners will take a look at the agreement with Mad Hatter Utility.
By ALISA ULFERTS
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 19, 2000
After nearly 10 years of wrangling, a final settlement to Mad Hatter Utility versus Pasco County is in sight.
Pasco will pay the utility $245,000 and its attorneys $558,000, according to the county's outside counsel on the case, Marion Hale of Clearwater.
That's down considerably from the $1.8-million the county originally was ordered to pay Mad Hatter in 1996 and less than the $1-million in fees the company's attorneys originally demanded.
"Many, many days of mediation" were the words Hale used to describe how the county and utility arrived at the settlement. If the state orders Mad Hatter to refund some customers' bills, the county will pay just over $400,000 of that, Hale said, though she said she didn't think the state would order the refund.
Neither Mad Hatter president Larry Delucenay nor attorney Gerald Buhr could be reached Wednesday.
The case was the most expensive lawsuit Pasco County had lost to date: $1.8-million to be paid to Mad Hatter Utilities for encroaching on its service territory.
Even though a federal judge reduced that amount by about two-thirds in 1998, an appellate court ruling still could have stuck the county with a bill topping $1.6-million. That would include the reduced judgment and what Mad Hatter attorneys requested in fees.
But a judge last year ordered the county and the utility into mediation to decide how much Mad Hatter should receivein legal fees. The two sides met for a year before coming up with the settlement, which will be presented to county commissioners on Nov. 8, Hale said.
Problems between the county and Mad Hatter date to 1991, when treated wastewater at a Mad Hatter plant in Land O'Lakes overflowed into the Foxwood and Village on the Pond neighborhoods.
During the emergency, without getting permission from Mad Hatter, the county connected Mad Hatter's customers to its own sewage treatment plant.
Mad Hatter attorneys argued at trial that Pasco, in essence, tried to drive the private utility out of business in order to take over its wastewater treatment business.
Jurors agreed and in 1996 awarded the utility $1.8-million. The judge later reduced that amount to about $600,000 but gave Mad Hatter jurisdiction to serve Denham Oaks Elementary School and the Oak Groves subdivision.