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A Georgia couple has been awarded 135,5 million dollars by a federal jury for the damages caused to their property due to an alleged solar contractor and company based in Tennessee.
James E. Butler announced the award Friday on behalf of plaintiffs Shaun Harris and Amie Amie Harris, who reside near Lumpkin in Georgia south from Columbus.
Silicon Ranch Corp., according to the lawsuit has built more than 160 facilities for solar panels across the nation, including many that were built by IEA. At “Lumpkin Solar,” IEA cleared and mass-graded about 1,000 acres of timberland, farmland and land near the Harris couple that was previously used for recreational hunting and fishing – without installing adequate measures for erosion and sediment control, Butler said in a news release.
“The result was what one would expect – when it rained, pollution poured downhill and downstream onto the neighbors’ property, inundating wetlands with silt and sediment, and turning a 21-acre trophy fishing lake into a mud hole,” Butler said.
The companies “created, operated and maintained a nuisance … that caused sedimentation to pollute plaintiffs’ wetlands, streams and lake. The court further finds that this nuisance has continued for approximately two years unabated,” U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land said in the order.
The jury awarded compensatory damages of $10,5 million.
In the punitive phase, where jurors consider an amount that would punish the companies for their actions, the panel found that SRC, IEA and and an IEA subsidiary – IEA Constructors, LLC – acted with specific intent to cause harm. According to the press release, the jury awarded $25 million as punitive damages for SRC, along with $50 million each against IEA Inc. and IEA Constructors, LLC.
Westwood Professional Services Inc. was cleared of any responsibility by the law firm, which said that the firm designed an erosion and sedimentation control plan on behalf of SRC and IEA.
“The SRC/IEA litigation and trial strategy was to blame everyone else and deny responsibility,” said plaintiffs’ counsel, Dan Philyaw. “They blamed Westwood, they blamed Shaun and Amie, they blamed too much rain, and they blamed ‘erodible soils.’”
“Meanness is not neighborly,” Butler said in summarizing the case, “and it is a terrible litigation and trial strategy.”
Silicon Ranch located in Nashville Tennessee announced in a press release emailed by The Associated Press it would appeal these verdicts.
“We relied on our contractor to carry out this scope of work in compliance with applicable law and in keeping with industry best management practices, as specified by the appropriate regulatory bodies in the state of Georgia,” the company said.
“As the long-term owner of this facility, Silicon Ranch remains committed to the continued success of Stewart County and the surrounding region,” the company continued. ”While we sincerely regret the unintentional damage to our neighbor’s property, Silicon Ranch does not believe the verdict in this trial is supported by the facts in this case.”
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