MIDWAY, Fla. — Twenty-eight Midway homeowners affected when water and sewer lines to their neighborhood were crossed are now sharing a big payout.
Their attorneys at Morgan & Morgan announced a $37 million settlement as a result of their case on Friday.
In the spring of 2021, a contractor mistakenly crossed a sewer line with a water line sending raw sewage into the water system of hundreds of homes.
Despite receiving numerous customer complaints during this time period, Midway failed to fully investigate the complaints and failed to notify hundreds of its customers that sewage may be in their drinking and fresh water, according to Morgan & Morgan. Midway ignored its own policies and procedures and established industry standards and failed to advise its customers that their water was problematic.
The sewage connection was discovered on October 18, 2021.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection later fined Midway for violating several administrative rules regarding the operation of the water system, which Midway did not contest.
The jury found Midway Water to be 59 percent at fault for not properly marking their water lines.
“This is a vindicating result for the dozens of impacted residents that we’ve represented the last several years,” said Morgan & Morgan founder John Morgan and attorney Mitchell Schermer. “Each time Midway Water had an opportunity to do the right thing, Midway continued to point the finger at others rather than accept responsibility for their mistakes that upended these homeowners’ lives. This was our clients’ worst nightmare, and because of Midway’s actions and inactions, it became their reality. We are thrilled that justice was served and that our clients can now close this horrendous chapter in their lives and begin to recover from the physical and emotional pain that they have suffered as a result of this traumatic ordeal.”
The case had been in trial for the last three weeks in Santa Rosa County.