ATTORNEY/CLIENT SESSION CITY OF LAKE WORTH - WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012

ATTORNEY/CLIENT SESSION

CITY OF LAKE WORTH

CITY OF LAKE WORTH

CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE

7 NORTH DIXIE HIGHWAY

LAKE WORTH, FLORIDA

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2012

4:52 p.m. - 6:15 p.m.

IN ATTENDANCE: 

Pam Triolo, Mayor

Scott Maxwell, Vice Mayor

Christopher McVoy, Commissioner

Andy Amoroso, Commissioner

Michael Bornstein, City Manager

Glen Torciva, Esquire, Interim City Attorney

Brian Joslyn, Esquire, Outside Counsel

[Forward to Deposition Page 10, Line 10]

MAYOR TRIOLO: Wasn't there a closed-door session with one page and then in that meeting -- didn't that happen before the vote?

MR. JOSLYN: There was a closed-door session before the vote. I was asked to opine whether the contract gave the City an out by Mr. Karns and I said yeah, the contract says if you don't reach the zoning approval date by June 30 of 2007, both sides had a right to terminate the agreement. 

     What I didn't understand at the time and nobody explained until I started looking at all the e-mails and the minutes was that you have this undercurrent in the City of what they are terming a conspiracy of City Commissioner and outside people getting another City Commissioner elected who approved her views to terminate the agreement after being told for a year that if you do this you're going to be sued for millions of dollars. And the perception, the risk is that a jury buys that perception as opposed to focusing on the language of the contract. 

     What is it the mediator said that the other side has a simple story to tell and we are going to have to explain. And his belief was the more you have to explain the more you're going to lose or the bigger your risk of losing. So I have two guys, one a retired District Court of Appeal judge, who is our first mediator a year ago, and quite frankly I thought after the depositions of the principals I thought we were in a much stronger position and the mediator said look, the risk you're going to run is that the jury is going to think this is kind of sleazy of the town. You go along all this time with these guys and then you terminate with this stuff in the background.

     The City had to -- there was a push by Greater Bay in 2007 to put out a notification of what was going to happen on the project because there was so much false information being deliberately distributed by members of the public, a number of whom are very closely allied to this particular City Commissioner.

     So when you weigh up do we win do we lose, I think you have a good shot. But if you don't win then your damages are going to be the minimum they have is 7 million. That's without breaking a sweat on their calculation. If you stretch it to a larger building they're just figuring 20 million on what they say they could have made on the City's project out here using the City's projections which turn out to be significantly defective. 

     So to get to the damage figure that they're using, they base their damage calculations on the City's five-year projection of the project. Okay? And what they did was they said well, this building is 20,000 square feet, we were going to build a 40,000 square foot building so we're scale up the five-year projections to 20 years and then double the size of the building and that gives us a damage figure of 16 to $17 million.

     The $7 million figure is if you just use the 20 years with the 20,000 square foot building. We have an expert who says this is nonsense. We could have knocked the damages down to some extent maybe. It depends on how aggravated a jury would be at what they are going to trot out as the City's nasty behavior or actually not the City so much as the City Commission being manipulated by a couple of City Commissioners. 

     It's a big risk and that's why you settle cases because you have a risk. Do you win at trial? Maybe you do. I have a lot of confidence in our abilities. I have a lot of confidence in our facts. But if you get hit you have a problem because it isn't going to be for the amount we settled on, it will likely be for the 7 million, something approaching $7 million.

     MAYOR TRIOLO: What were the results of the mock trials?

     MR. JOSLYN: The mock trials? Geez, I got a jury verdict in one case, what was it, 15 minutes I think I whacked you for $20 million and all I was saying was give us 2. Okay? We had four different juries that day. Everybody awarded more than $5 million in damages.

     So walking a thin line through trial is difficult but doable, but when the last mediator said look, I think you really have, and I said look, I know you're doing your job, a private meeting I had with him, I know you're doing your job, you're trying to beat us up and stuff but I'm very confident. He said I don't think I'd be that confident. He goes they can make the City look really bad. You know, from what he knows of local politics and people that are on the jury are apt to know that Lake Worth has had problems in the past. So then the four of us sitting in the room sort of did a well the mean of 7,900,000 bucks is or for $7,500,000 is like $3.7 million. I mean if you just get hit for half of what they're talking about you've got problems. If they tag you for all of it, and I'm not talking about the 16 or 17 million, I'm talking just 7, $8 million, the City's continued existence is perishing.