JEFFERSONVILLE —
A Springdale Drive resident is alleging that Jeffersonville officials were negligent in the engineering and installation of a sewer pipe in his neighborhood.
Homeowner Paul Carraher, acting as his own attorney, filed a lawsuit in Clark Superior Court No. 2 earlier this year. The suit relates not only to the project, but sewer backups that occurred during the Aug. 4 flood, which dumped about 6 inches of rain on the region in about an hour.
At the time of the flood, city workers had been on the job for months, replacing an 8-inch sewer line with a 12-inch sewer line.
Initially, the work was only supposed to take a few weeks. However, city officials said in previous interviews that the project took far longer than expected, as workers have had to work around water and gas lines and dig wells to drop the groundwater level.
“Early in the morning of Aug. 4, 2009, I was awoken by the smell of urine and fecal matter,” Carraher writes in the suit.
He claims that the most significant part of the storm had yet to hit and he went outside and asked city employees to turn on a bypass pump that would have diverted sewage to the end of the road.
“The road crew had no idea what pump I was talking about,” he writes.
He said he contacted Utility Director Len Ashack and urged him to have the bypass pump turned on. At one point, Carraher claims that Ashack spoke to the city employees on the street on his cell phone, but they still wouldn’t turn the pump on.
“This professional ‘judgment call’ willfully and knowingly pumped raw sewage into our home,” he claims in the suit.
Eventually, the pump was turned on and the sewage was cleared out of the home, but Carraher claims the damage was done.
The city’s answer to the lawsuit, written by Stacy Newton, an Evansville-based attorney representing the city’s insurance provider, is far shorter.
It addresses each paragraph individually and either denies the allegation or says the city doesn’t have sufficient knowledge to admit or deny involvement. The city’s answer does note that the plaintiff’s complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Carraher said he would settle for $15,000 for damages to his finished basement including walls, floors and equipment there.
Further, the answer said that Carraher didn’t comply with the presuit notice provisions of the Indiana Tort Claims Act. Carraher said he did file a presuit claim, but that Newton didn’t read it.
The city also demands a jury trial. Carraher responded to the answer with another filing earlier this month, calling it “an obviously frivolous and baseless declaration to the court devoid of any assertion of fact, cite of statute or case law.” In the response, he asked that the court strike the city’s response to his lawsuit.
Calls made to both the city’s attorney, Darren Wilder, and Newton were not returned.
STILL WORK TO DO
Work is not yet complete on the street. On Monday, the city will be installing curbs at the north end of Springdale Drive to help direct stormwater to drainage grates, said Larry Thomas, communications director for the city.
“After the concrete has a chance to settle and the weather gets a bit warmer, either Gohmann Asphalt & Construction — which laid the first coat of asphalt — or Mac Construction — which was awarded the city’s 2010 paving bid — will put the final coat of asphalt on Springdale Drive from Eighth Street to 10th Street,” Thomas wrote in an e-mail to The Evening News.
He said the project went from being just a sewer project to being both a sewer and stormwater project on Springdale Drive, Kehoe Lane and 10th Street.
“The project’s scope expanded as we discovered unexpected problems that had to be addressed in order for the project to be completed properly,” he wrote.
He also notes that after the Aug. 4 flood, the city installed backflow preventers — a one-way gate that allows sewage to only flow toward the line, not the structures — on each sewer lateral coming from Springdale Drive.
To date, the city has spent about $161,000 on materials and paving. By the time the curbing is installed and the final paving is completed, the total cost will be in the vicinity of $185,000 to $190,000, Thomas said.
That estimate does not include city workers’ hours.
Clark County
March 20, 2010
Springdale Drive resident sues Jeffersonville
Lawsuit alleges city negligence during August flood
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