Libby willing to negotiate with church

The City of Libby is offering to negotiate a potential settlement with Libby Baptist Church for damage sustained to the church facilities during a 2014 flooding incident.

According to documents presented to the City Council, the church facilities were damaged during three floods, which took place in March 2014. The original request, provided to Council, indicated the church spent “almost $40,000” and incurred “about 1,500 man-hours of labor” to repair to damage.

Pastor Darwin Scofield of the Libby Baptist Church, in a letter to the City Council dated Feb. 2, blamed the flooding and resulting damage on a sewer line project completed by the city in 2009.

Mayor Roll said the city, without accepting blame and responsibility, is willing to negotiate a reasonable settlement in order to avoid the cost of litigation. He mentioned a figure of roughly two to three thousand dollars as reasonable. “We’re just trying to be a good neighbor,” Roll said.

One condition of that settlement, Roll said, would be Libby Baptist Church providing an objective professional engineer’s report that supports some level of liability on the part of the city or the city’s contractors on the project.

The church has appointed a team “authorized to negotiate a settlement if/when the opportunity presents itself,” according to a document provided to the city’s water and sewer committee Feb. 11. The names of the appointed team were redacted from the document provided to The Western News in response to a formal Freedom of Information Act request filed with the city.

The document also referenced the “financial considerations” from the church, a total of $57,425.18.

That total was broken down to $35,725.18 for materials and contractors, but neither receipts nor supporting documentation were provided to the City Council to support that figure.

The document also referenced an additional $21,750 for labor. The labor charge was based upon 1,450 hours at $15 per hour. Those hours have also not been supported by any documents provided by representatives from the church, although an approximation of 1,500 hours was referenced in both the May 27, 2014 and Feb. 2, 2015 letters to the City Council.

The letter of Feb. 2 indicates the labor was provided from “volunteers around the city.” It is unclear why a value of $15 per hour was attached to the Feb. 11 statement of financial considerations and why volunteer labor would be considered a cost or damage incurred by the church. Scofield refused to comment on the issue.

A claim was filed with the city’s insurance carrier, Montana Municipal Interlocal Authority on March 10, but was denied for two reasons, according to the denial letter dated June 4.

The first reason was a lack of evidence of liability on the part of the city. “The facts surrounding your damage do not reveal a breach of ordinary care on the part of the City of Libby. The immediate cause of the damage was due to factors outside of the City of Libby’s control in the exercise of ordinary care.”

The second reason, according to the letter, was that the sewer replacement project was completed by Edstrom Construction, not by the city. As part of that contract, Edstrom also agreed to indemnify and hold harmless the City from claims arising out of its work.”

Edstrom Construction’s insurance carrier, The Cincinnati Insurance Companies, also denied the claim. That denial, dated Aug. 4, 2014, stated, “Our investigation into allegations the insured referenced above negligently caused damage to your property reveals no evidence to support a liability decision against them.”

At the Feb. 2 City Council meeting, Scofield presented a document which stated, “Our expectations are, really, no different than what you would want: To be made whole for damages that were not caused by us and see that the intended redesign of the sewer project drainage be completed to avoid further risk.”

Roll said the city is willing to do what it can to help the church, but was not prepared to admit fault or responsibility for the flooding and damage. He was concerned about the danger of setting a precedent by providing financial assistance in an instance in which the city was not to blame, but was more concerned about the long-term cost of litigation. “Nobody wins in court,” he said. “Just the lawyers.”

City attorney Allan Payne has been in contact with the city’s insurer, which has expressed a willingness to revisit the issue should an engineering evaluation provide additional information to support the church’s claim.