Dangerous Precedent Set - The Mancini Litigation Calculator
When I bought my Walkerville home back in 2002, I had a few issues with sewage backing up into my basement.
No, it wasn’t fun at all! You can imagine how nasty it would be to go downstairs and find a murky liquid, complete with TP, floating around in your home.
I live in an old neighbourhood, and the combined sanitation/storm sewers means that heavy rains could flood the system, with disasterous results backing up into peoples homes. Combine that with the century old trees (and their huge root systems) and clay pipes surround the structures and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
If I had know that I could have sued the city for almost $603,000, I could have been tempted to let my fingers do the walking in the lawyer section of the phone book! I could be mortgage free right now…
No, my house is not worth over $600,000. It’s assessed value is only around $175,000. Yet that is precisely what Remo Mancini did when his Amherstburg home (assessed value = $653,000) suffered the same plight as mine did - he is suing for $2.25 million dollars.
At that rate, the town of Amherstburg would have been better off just buying his property at fair market value, saving $1.6 million, and giving their residents a public connection to the waterfront now that the Ranta marina is being threatened. But I digress…
What kind of precedent would this set if the legal battles were to side with the property owner?
The City of Windsor, with infrastructure dating back to the 1920’s, is constantly dealing with watermain breaks and sewer issues. According to the 2008 WUC audit, there are over 600 breaks per year of the aging iron supply pipes running under our city streets. With the national infrastructure deficit ringing in at about $123 billion dollars, there’s a lot of basements being threatened by the influx of unwanted effluent.
“Statistics Canada reported recently that the average age of Canada’s wastewater treatment facilities has been increasing steadily since the late 1970s, owing—presumably—to fewer new systems or upgrades. It pointed out that in 2007 the gross stock of investments in sanitary and storm sewers as well as wastewater treatment in Canada amounted to $60 billion. “The average useful life for this asset is estimated at 28.2 years. In 2007, these facilities passed 63 per cent of their useful life nationally, the highest ratio among the five public infrastructure assets, a list that includes highways and overpasses. Provincial figures were all above the 60 per cent mark, with Prince Edward Island ranking at the top.”
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) estimates water and wastewater infrastructure needs $31 billion in upgrades while the Canadian Water Network puts it at $39 billion to maintain water and sewer systems, and $90 billion over a decade for replacements and upgrades.”
If the Mancini precedent is set, municipalities across the nation are in for one hell of an expensive future.
Maybe we should just give up now and call a Do-Over.
Post Feedback
I’d be careful about jumping to conclusions. I get the feel that this case might have some unique circumstances. I’m reading stuff like removing backflow valves, 1 year to repair. Municipalities can afford a flood of lawsuits but they also need to be held accountable.
I remember when the time I discovered parking meters counted down the grace period quickly (took 2 minutes for the meter to count back to -5) and I maintain that it was no accident
Still - how do you sue for over two million when your home is assessed for $600,000?
What does he have stored in that basement that also got destroyed, loose $1,000 bills?
Hey look at fly in the water bottle man. He only lost the ridiculous amount on appeal.
Obviously this puts muncipalities at huge risk, I want to see what type of negligence officials are going to be accused of.
That’s the story that doesn’t get the press. You hear about all the people who are awarded ridiculous sums for self-inflicted wounds, but the appeals that overturn the original ruling are never as widely reported. It wouldn’t be surprising if all newspapers had reporting coverage as bad as the Windsor Star, but that isn’t the case. Reversals aren’t big news. They’re not sensational enough to sell papers/advertising etc.
Mancini has never done anything without a flourish. Sue big and settle out of court with no precident for the city. Same old game.