Paperwork Aims to Keep Sunset Hills Residents Out of Litigation
By Melissa Moody, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
Aug. 5–Attorneys Dan Moore and Doug Bates — who are involved in litigation between Clark County Surveyor Bob Isgrigg and the County Commissioners and County Drainage Board — filed objections to prevent Sunset Hills residents’ Tammy and Rodney Ross from entering the case.
The Ross’ attorney, Greg Fifer, filed for a motion to intervene in the case July 15 on behalf of the couple, who have been vocal in their complaints about ongoing drainage problems in the subdivision.
“It’s pretty hard to imagine you can have the plaintiff and defendant objecting,” Fifer said. “We have a separate property interest and we have a matter of right in the case.
“It is hard to believe anyone is protecting my client’s interest (in the case).”
Monday was the deadline for objections to Fifer’s intervention, and Moore, the county attorney representing the commissioners, and Bates, with the law firm Stites and Harbison, representing Isgrigg, filed objections last week.
Bates declined to comment on the reasoning for objecting to Fifer’s participation in the case, because of “client conversations” covered under attorney-client privilege. But the objection filed in Clark County Superior Court No. 1 stated that “nothing in (Isgrigg’s lawsuit against the commissioners and drainage board) adversely affects Mr. and Mrs. Ross,” and that the Rosses “lack standing to intervene in this lawsuit.”
The paperwork filed also “joins in the Board of Commissioners of Clark County, Indiana, in objecting.”
The objection filed July 29 by Moore on behalf of the commissioners was unable to be located in the clerk’s office. Moore, though, said that this is not a lawsuit involving private causes or damages.
“It’s a unique kind of lawsuit — (Isgrigg) is asking the judge to declare the law,” Moore said.
The Rosses have always had the right to sue.
“It’s not that I don’t think they have a claim,” he said. “But they don’t need this lawsuit to seek redress.”
Isgrigg filed suit against the commissioners and the drainage board last month, following ongoing disputes between the parties in handling drainage issues around the county. Isgrigg said his objections involved work performed by the county on private property, and an excessive amount of money was going to be spent in drainage board funds — collected from subdivision developers — for drainage work in Sunset Hills.
He said he was not consulted, or ignored, in work that was being approved by the board. He is requesting a “declaratory judgment” to basically define what authority each party has in making drainage decisions in the county.
Commissioner Mike Moore, a vocal proponent of fixing the drainage problems in Sunset Hills, said he would be glad to have Fifer involved in the case.
“I’m happy to have an attorney in this litigation that not only represents the point of view of Sunset Hills’ residents, but mine as well, and is on the right side of the law,” Mike Moore said. “As far as getting this resolved, Fifer needs to be involved.”
Though much of what goes on in the case is behind closed doors, “in the last week, things have finally started working out and I think the reason for that is Fifer got involved and called Isgrigg’s bluff,” Mike Moore said.
A bond that was allowed to expire, which would have been in place to fix any work the developer did not complete, is pointed out by Fifer as a reason the county should get involved to improve poor drainage in the subdivision. And work he called flawed performed by Isgrigg in Sunset Hills is another reason he wants to join the case, Fifer said.
Dan Moore said he has every belief that any existing drainage problems in Sunset Hills can be worked out “administratively” between the commissioners, drainage board and Isgrigg. The lawsuit, he said, will unlikely affect any solution to fix drainage problems at Sunset Hills, and he said he would like to see Fifer involved in the issue in an administrative capacity, working as a spokesperson for the residents of the subdivision.
“That’s been the one missing link — saying for whom (commissioners) are doing this work,” Dan Moore said. “A government has got to know for whom they’re providing a service.
“The litigation can sit for awhile, and we can organize a solution administratively,” he said. “This system is meant to function administratively, not under the court’s supervision.
“I don’t think there is any real likelihood that if (the Rosses) don’t get into the lawsuit, they can’t file their own.”
Fifer, in discussing the motion to intervene in the case, said a separate lawsuit is very likely what will happen if Superior Court No. 1 Judge Vicki Carmichael doesn’t allow the Rosses into the current lawsuit.
Briefings from the attorneys involved are due by Aug. 15. Fifer is hoping Carmichael will grant an expedited decision on his motion to intervene, and the subsequent objections from Moore and Bates.
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