Less than one week before trial was due to begin, Port St. Lucie City Council will meet at 11 a.m. Friday, April 10, to consider a proposed settlement agreement for its longstanding lawsuit against its former trash hauler, Waste Pro.
No information beyond time and date of the meeting were released April 9, so it is unclear what the settlement offer contains or whether city leaders will agree to it.
A trial on the lawsuit was to begin April 13 and last as long as April 30, according to court records.
Whether by settlement or by a trial, this month could see the end of a years-long legal battle between the city and Waste Pro.
Trash is seen piled up waiting for curbside pickup along the 200 block of Cherry Hill Road in the Windmill Point neighborhood on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, in Port St. Lucie. Both yard debris and trash pickup pile up curbside as Waste Pro continues to be behind in curbside trash and yard waste pickup in Port St. Lucie.
The lawsuit dates back to the years and months leading up to September 2021, when the city sued Waste Pro, alleging the company breached its contract — which was renewed in 2019 and intended to run until 2025 — by failing to meet agreed-upon standards of service. Though there had been complaints of missed routes and inconsistent pickups for years, they soared following the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first six months of 2021, the city received more than 7,000 complaints.
According to court documents filed by the city, after repeated attempts to address the issues with Waste Pro, the city began imposing administrative charges on Waste Pro as permitted under its contract. Those charges were withheld from the city’s payments to the company.
Waste Pro responded by claiming it was unable to perform its services due to a “force majeure event” — a legal term for unforeseen circumstances — referring to the pandemic. According to the contract, Waste Pro claimed, neither party was liable for failing to fulfill requirements due to the pandemic.
However, court documents reviewed by TCPalm include a Waste Pro executive’s statement that the poor service was due to lack of workers, which the company said was a result of the pandemic. Waste Pro’s contract with the city specifically states that a “labor shortage” is not a “force majeure event.”
Waste Pro’s “Notice of Force Majeure Events” was sent to the city in August 2021. The following month, the city sued, asking a court to rule whether the company could legally make such a claim.
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By February 2022, the situation had escalated. According to the city’s lawsuit, Waste Pro notified the city that it intended to terminate the contract and end garbage collection in six months if $1.2 million of the administrative charges, about 60% of what the city was withholding, was not returned.The city instead expanded its lawsuit in March, claiming breach of contract. By May 2022, the city had selected FCC Environmental Services to replace Waste Pro. FCC continues to be the city’s trash hauler nearly four years later.
Waste Pro filed a counterclaim against Port St. Lucie in March 2022, alleging the city, not the company, violated the contract by withholding the administrative charges and entering into an agreement with a new company despite an exclusivity clause.
Wicker Perlis is TCPalm’s Watchdog Reporter for St. Lucie County. You can reach him at Wicker.Perlis@TCPalm.com.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Port St. Lucie may settle Waste Pro lawsuit days before trial start