Buckeye Water District Settles Susany Lawsuit

Wednesday - January 20: A settlement was announced at a Special Meeting of the BWD Board of Trustees held yesterday at the Water Treatment Plant. The settlement was for the Craig Susany Inc. lawsuit filed against the district in 2007. Present at the meeting was Trustee President Mike Ryan, Trustees Jack Call, Cal Carney, Gene McGaffick, Bob Wines, Chuck Bibbee, Tim O'Hara and Jack Whitacre. Also present was BWD Attorney Fred Emmerling, District Manager Al DeAngelis and BWD Fiscal Officer Sara Crouch.

Craig Susany Inc. was contracted to install a water line from the new Raw Water Pumping Station along the river to the new Water Treatment Plant in late 2006. In a dispute between the District and the Susany company over wrapping the new pipe and detectable tracer tape the company's contract was cancelled. Another company was brought in to finish the project. Susany claimed he was verbally told those two items were not needed and officials of the District claimed they were part of the specifications for the job.

Susany filed suit in CC Common Pleas Court for breach of the $4.18 million contract against the Water District. That trial began with jury selection on Monday, January 11, 2010, in Judge Dave Tobin's courtroom. According to the newspaper account the trial was suspended shortly after the lunch break this past Tuesday, January 19, pending a possible settlement. Jurors were sent home and told to be back today. The suit was for $1.9 million plus.

Following an Executive Session of the Trustees yesterday Attorney Emmerling announced that a settlement has been accepted by the Board. Emmerling said the settlement was in the best interest of both parties in the dispute.

Emmerling went on to read the BWD resolution passed by the Trustees. In the out-of-court settlement BWD will pay the contractor $425,000. All claims asserted against each party will be settled and released, including any bonding company claims against the contractor. The court case will be dismissed with prejudice and court costs will be evenly divided between the two parties. Each side will be responsible for their own litigation costs.

Emmerling said payment will be made to Susany as soon as all documents are signed. Trustee Chuck Bibbee advised money has been held in a reserved fund pending this case. Emmerling advised the Court that the settlement was accepted immediately following the Executive Session.

In wrapping things up Emmerling said he wanted to commend the jurors for this case. He said they did an excellent job. There were a lot of technical details submitted by each party. Emmerling said the jurors were extremely attentive to all those details.

The District will have a Personnel Committee meeting this Friday with no announcements expected to follow. The next regular monthly meeting of the BWD Trustees has been rescheduled for Thursday, January 28, at 9 A.M at Wellsville Village Hall.

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