South Carolina Lawyers Weekly
The April 25th edition of South Carolina Lawyers Weekly features an article entitled “Developer gets $930K verdict in environmental cleanup dispute.”
Senior staff writer for South Carolina Lawyers Weekly, Fred Horlbeck, writes that “A jury has awarded a real estate development company more than $930,000 plus attorney’s fees in a breach-of-contract action centering on an environmental cleanup in Richland County.” He goes on to describe the case, saying that “Plaintiff Ginn-LA University Club Ltd. claimed defendant Amelia Capital III breached a contract for the sale of The University Club Golf Club, a 239-acre real estate development in Blythewood. The plaintiff claimed the contract required Amelia Capital to pay the cost of cleaning up hazardous waste on the property. The plaintiff demanded payment of incurred and future costs – and got it.”
Wyche attorney, John Moylan of our Columbia office, who acted as the lawyer for the plaintiff, said “The jury gave us every penny that we asked for.” In addition to that, after the two-day trial, the jurors asked whether they could also award attorney’s fees. “[T]he jury actually sent a note to the judge asking if they could award attorney’s fees on top of everything we asked for,” Moylan said.
Moylan talks about the case, saying “It was a case where fuel tanks had leaked over the years, basically around the golf course maintenance shed. The parties knew there had been some contamination but didn’t know the extent of it. The contract provided that the seller would indemnify the plaintiff for the cleanup effort.”
But the seller didn’t pay up, Moylan said. So, the plaintiff sued for breach of contract and won, receiving damages to cover the plaintiff’s past cleanup costs of about $300,000 and future costs of about $600,000.
Read the full article on SCLawyersWeekly.com.
