Today, Judge Ford ruled (07-L-109) that the County's contract for the Farnsworth group called for binding arbitration and threw out the County's attempt to move this battle into the court system. I talked with State's Attorney Julia Rietz and she dismissed the importance of the ruling. But there is little doubt that the County has invested substantial resources and time into the effort to push this into the courts.
To review: In August 2006, Julia Rietz hired one of her campaign contributors, Joe Phebus, to handle the County's litigation against PKD, Farnsworth, and Otto Baum for defects in the construction of the Nursing Home. There is little doubt that Phebus is one of the premier litigators in Champaign County so while I had my qualms about the hire, I generally felt that it was sound. Unfortunately, my confidence dwindled over time.
First, Phebus came up with a settlement about $100,000 for PKD in December 2006. As PKD had the responsibility to oversee the project and notify the County of problems, the settlement seemed generous. The County Board approved the settlement.
Then Phebus filed a lawsuit in May 2007 asking for $5 million in damages from Farnsworth. Virtually no one believed that the contract called for anything other than binding arbitration, but if Phebus read it different, so be it.
Following that lawsuit filing, I learned about a big loophole in the Phebus legal contract that would allow Julia Rietz to adjust his fee based on certain arbitrary criteria.
And throughout all of this, we still don't know how much Phebus has billed us for this work. We presume, since he is supposedly working on an hourly fee, that he's tracking his hours. But he has still not provided the County Board with any accounting of those hours. 18 months after beginning the work on this, we have no idea if we currently owe Phebus, $10,000, $100,000 or $1,000,000. And even today, Julia Rietz dismissed the importance of knowing that.
Now, we have lost a court case that probably never should have been filed at substantial expense to the County. Plus, we've lost valuable time. Three years after the discovery of mold and two years after the discovery of HVAC problems, the County has recovered less than 5% of their costs for these problems.
Without the help of a single attorney, the County probably could have recovered $1 million between these two cases. Instead, three years later, we have no settlement, no settlement on the horizon, and hundreds of thousands in known legal expenses, and probably hundreds of thousands in anticipated legal expenses. Now the County is going to be faced with bringing their case before a construction arbitrator; exactly what they were hoping to avoid.
But we're going to have a bell tower!
How about somebody asking Phebus something like, " Hey Joe where are we on this money thing?? How much are You charging Us an hour?, How much do We owe You?" Oh I forgot this is only taxpayers money! Never mind.
People are going to get a laugh someday when they look back at local government from this era. We have a school district that can't get out of its own way; a county board that seemingly has no clue; a cowardly university board that won't act for years on its racist mascot, then does so illegally when it finally musters up the courage; and a city council that spent 2007 chasing its tail and acting inconsistently.
I don't think people here should be making fun of Springfield. If anything, Springfield is making fun of you.
"People are going to get a laugh someday when they look back at local government from this era. We have a school district that can't get out of its own way; a county board that seemingly has no clue; a cowardly university board that won't act for years on its racist mascot, then does so illegally when it finally musters up the courage; and a city council that spent 2007 chasing its tail and acting inconsistently."
The laughs may indeed come someday, but not soon.
These observations, while harsh and certainly oversimplified, are still very thought-provoking when you see tham all together.
I made a post to Mark's first disclosure of the legal action long ago, and described in detail how the County had really screwed up in entering into an arbitration contract for disputes. Now a Judge has confirmed what I already knew and stated.
Now to reiterate, even though the contract does provide the for the reimbursement of legal fees to the prevailing party, 99.99% of the time each party is responsible for some part of the problem and arbitrators simply don't award those fees. In this case, the County certainly has very dirty hands as does Farnsworth, but remember, the County is asking for professional negligence, which is very very very difficult to prove because they have to prove Farnsworth, DID NOT act according to the acceptable standards of their profession. Making a mistake in calculations is NOT professional negligence, it is a mistake or blunder and not subject to professional negligence standards. Unless the complaint has been amended, the County did not ask for damages resulting from a blunder or mistake.
The County would be ill advised to continue with this action because their hands are just as dirty as the Professionals and only the Public is going to pay. Farnsworth has errors and omissions insurance and are only going to lose their deductible. The insurance is paying for their legal defense and has far deeper pockets than the County. The County will loose not only that part of the contract which was their responsibility, but also the legal fees.
Stop spending our money and making attorneys rich, cut our losses and allow the County to spend funds on more important issues rather than a "pig in a poke"
Remember the old saying....... "I was only broke twice in my life, once when I lost a law suit and once when I won a law suit"...
To that end, I am, and shall always remain;
Rex Bradfield