School Board approves deal on lawsuits

Friday, Nov. 14, 2003 | 9:17 a.m.

The School Board approved spending $1.1 million Thursday to settle three long-standing lawsuits brought by construction companies, a deal the Clark County School District's attorney said may have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in continued legal costs.

The School District will pay $750,000 to Addison Construction Inc. in a case that dates to 1999, when the company alleges it was not compensated for work done on seven campuses over two years.

Richardson Construction will receive $387,600 to settle a claim over work at Basic High School in 1995 and Ruby Thomas Elementary School the following year.

Addison won a $1.6 million judgment against the School District in August 2002. The company's president, Steve Van Meetren, brought the School Board an unusual offer a month later: settle the case immediately and he would donate $300,000 in classroom supplies to the district.

Even with some additional legal costs associated with the case over the past year, the district came out ahead for refusing Van Meetren's suggestion, Bill Hoffman, senior counsel for the district, said.

Van Meetren could not be immediately reached for comment.

In the past year the number of pending construction-related lawsuits has dropped from 35 to six, Hoffman said.

The majority of those lawsuits dated back to work performed during the mid- to late 1990s, when the district's construction program was managed by an outside company. All construction work is now overseen by district employees.

In September an outside audit of the district's $3.5 billion capital improvement plan praised the restructuring of the construction department and made recommendations for even more oversight, particularly when it comes to authorizing change orders. Fred Smith, construction manager for the district, said many of the audit's recommendations are already being implemented.

More oversight will likely mean fewer lawsuits, as in the past many claims brought by construction companies were disputes over whether work was completed as the original contract demanded, Hoffman said.

"The more supervision, the more attention you pay to the details on the spot, the better off you are," Hoffman said.