Armed with evidence collected through depositions taken from corporate representatives from the city of Gulf Breeze, Midway Water System and Brown Construction, the Morgan & Morgan law firm is seeking punitive damages from each entity on behalf of residents impacted by what its lawyers are calling “the 2021 Midway Water crisis.”
The crisis unfolded at the beginning of April that year when a crew working for Brown Construction at a home listed at 5000 Soundside Drive in Gulf Breeze tapped into Midway Water System’s water main and connected a city sewage line to a freshwater supply line. Hundreds of residences were exposed to raw sewage flowing into their homes.
Attorney Mitch Schermer’s motion to amend his firm’s original complaint and argue for punitive damages, filed Friday, asserts that the violations of established policies and procedures, as well as state laws, on the part of agents of all three lawsuit defendants rise to the level of willful and wanton misconduct.
“It shocks the conscience to think that something as simple as connecting a new home to a utility line could have been bungled so badly that the end result was hundreds of people drinking, cooking with, bathing,washing their clothes, and cleaning their homes with sewer water contaminated with bacteria,” the motion states.