Fighting over fees

Arguing over the Lincoln Park soccer field in Circuit Court

04/29/2009 10:00 PM

By IAN FULLERTON
Contributing Reporter

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Many Lincoln Parkers have decried the construction of a park on its south end.
File 2008/Staff

Parties on both sides of the Latin school soccer field row are revisiting the terms of last year’s settlement to hear out who should pick up the legal bill in the suit that followed.

In the latest round of cross-sanctions, brought before Circuit Court Judge Martin Agran April 28, the advocacy group Protect Our Parks fought motions the Chicago Park District, the Latin School of Chicago and FieldTurf USA filed to recoup attorney’s fees in the previous litigation.

The district and the school were defendants in two suits brought on by POP last year. In the first case, Judge Dorothy Kirie Kinnaird struck down a deal that would have given the school privileged use of the field. The second case, which listed FieldTurf among the defendants, questioned the use of allegedly toxic chemicals in the artificial turf installed on the field.

After Judge Agran dismissed the turf suit in January, the park district filed a “rule 137 motion” to retake legal fees lost in the case. The school followed shortly after with their own motion to sanction, as did FieldTurf in April.

“The Latin school never should have been a part of this case, period,” said Bruce Meckler, attorney for the Latin school, at Tuesday’s hearing.

He called the charges in the turf lawsuit “frivolous,” claiming the school signed away all rights, and thus responsibility, to the soccer field when they were cut out of the deal last year.

But POP attorney Thomas Ramsdell argued that Latin was still liable. He said the turf chosen by the school was used on the field even after the deal with the district was terminated — landing any future health hazards squarely in the school’s lap.

Ramsdell then ran through the history of the cases, reaching as far back as late 2007 — months before the first complaint was filed by POP — when, he claimed, the school had become involved in drafting early designs for the field. He presented pictures of representatives from the school wearing hardhats at the future site of the field, an exhibit Meckler regarded as tenuous.

George Lynch, a park district attorney, maintained the turf complaints were put to rest in the settlement, in which POP retrieved over $40,000 in attorney’s fees.

“The settlement was clear and unambiguous,” said Lynch, adding that POP agreed to the terms, “with full knowledge of alleged dangers of the turf.”

Ramsdell said the dangers of the turf remained unaddressed in the first case because they were largely unforeseen by POP at the time of the settlement.

He said the assessment of the turf done by the district was insufficient, calling it “a review of environmental databases,” and upheld that the questions surrounding the safety of the turf needed answers, regardless of the legal timing.

“It is never too late for justice,” he repeated throughout the hearing.

Judge Agran did not seem pleased to have the turf issue before his court again.

“How are you going to — in good faith — bring up a motion that I have already ruled on?” he asked the POP attorney.
The judge postponed the ruling in order to give the parties time to revise the motions.

The hearing is scheduled to go back to Circuit Court June 17.


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