FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Florida Communication Concepts, a subcontractor of Florida Power & Light, could be out tens of millions of dollars after a jury found the company 98% responsible for a massive water main break in Fort Lauderdale in 2019, which affected thousands of businesses in surrounding areas for several days.
The trouble began on July 17, 2019, when the Wellington-based company’s workers damaged a 42-inch water main with an underground drill near Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, according to city officials.
Water was cut to downtown Fort Lauderdale, including at Galleria Mall, leaving a quarter of a million people without clean drinking water. The fire department ordered downtown offices closed because there wasn’t water for fire suppression systems in the buildings.
Attorney David Dipietro was among the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit. He said he had to close his downtown Fort Lauderdale law office that day, and it would be too costly for him to file a lawsuit against FPL on his own.
“The whole day was wiped out. We are about 15 employees; seven lawyers,” Dipietro said. “I think it is between $7,000 to $10,000 we lost that day in workable billable hours.”
According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, during the week-long trial, the jury learned that Florida Communication Concepts workers thought they had encountered a large rock when they drilled a 6-inch hole into the water main.
More than 9,000 businesses were represented in the class-action lawsuit. A spokesperson for class action attorneys Adam Moskowitz, Bill Scherer and Cristina Pierson said the lawyers already settled with FPL and the other defendants in the civil case.
“This should not have happened and we’re grateful to the jury system,” Moskowitz told Local 10 News.
The losses for those 9,000 businesses range from a few hundred dollars to the mid-six figures. The Marriott Harbor Beach, for example, believes it lost nearly $400,000 from that day alone. The hotel had to relocate 600 of its customers on the spot.
The City of Fort Lauderdale and FPL were both found not financially liable, but the jury believes the city shares a 2% blame for what went wrong.
The next step is the damages phase, to determine how much money Florida Communication Concepts — or its insurance — should pay. It could reach $100 million.
Local 10 News has reached out to that company for comment and so far has not heard back.