(This story has been updated because a previous version contained an inaccuracy.)
A Santa Rosa County jury has awarded a $37,495,930 to 28 Gulf Breeze residents impacted by what the law firm of Morgan and Morgan has billed the “2021 Midway water crisis.”
Filed by Morgan in Morgan on behalf of the homeowners, the lawsuit revolved around events that occurred around the first of April in 2021, when a crew working for Brown Construction at a home listed at 5000 Soundside Drive in Gulf Breeze connected a residential private sewer line from the house to a water main owned by Midway Water System.
The case went to trial Oct. 27 after the city of Gulf Breeze and Brown Construction had been dismissed as co-defendants along with Midway Water System. The trial lasted three weeks and included four days of deliberation. The jury found Midway to be 59% at fault, resulting in a net verdict of $22 million, a news release sent out by the law firm said.
The release states that Midway’s failure to properly mark its waterline helped lead to the cross connection. When sewer service was activated six months later, and for the next 24 days, residents complained of low water pressure, dirty water, odor and clogged appliances.
“Despite receiving numerous customer complaints, Midway failed to fully investigate the complaints and failed to notify hundreds of its customers that sewage may be in their drinking and fresh water,” the news release said. “Instead, Midway ignored its own policies and procedures and established industry standards and failed to advise its customers that their water was problematic.”
The sewage connection was finally discovered on Oct. 18, 2021, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection later fined Midway for violating several administrative rules regarding the operation of the water system, which Midway did not contest, the news release said.
“This is a vindicating result for the dozens of impacted residents that we’ve represented the last several years,” said a statement from Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan and attorney Mitchell Schermer. “Each time Midway Water had an opportunity to do the right thing, Midway continued to point the finger at others rather than accept responsibility for their mistakes that upended these homeowners’ lives.”
The news release called the water crisis “our clients’ worst nightmare.”
“We are thrilled that justice was served and that our clients can now close this horrendous chapter in their lives and begin to recover from the physical and emotional pain that they have suffered as a result of this traumatic ordeal,” the release said.
Efforts to reach a Midway Water System spokesperson or utility attorney Richard Fillmore were unsuccessful Friday afternoon.
The law firm said pre-trial settlement offers had been rejected by the Gulf Breeze residents and their willingness to persevere had resulted in the big verdict.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Gulf Breeze residents whose water was contaminated with sewage win $37M
Reporting by Tom McLaughlin, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
