By Alex Christodoulides
The case went to a jury trial in State Supreme Court in Jamaica before Judge Lawrence Cullen in November after almost six years of waiting. The Jamaica Hill houses near the intersection of 84th Avenue and 159th Street developed cracks and began to sink in January 2001. The homeowners and their attorneys blamed the problem on the improper repair of a broken water main, the persistent leaking of which washed away soil around the foundations and caused them to settle and break.Five of the 13 houses were condemned in 2001 and remain uninhabitable, with X's spray painted on exterior walls and crumbling bricks showing the extent of the damage. The others have been repaired.Ira Futterman, one of three attorneys representing the 13 homeowners and a partner at Pearlman, Apat & Futterman, told the TimesLedger that the case was resolved March 3 in favor of the homeowners after a nearly four-month-long trial and one day of jury deliberations.”Judge Cullen was, without a doubt, instrumental” in resolving the case, Futterman said. The jury assigned blame equally between the city and a contractor that repaired the water main, Futterman said.”There was water in the street months before the collapse, and the city said it received no calls of complaint,” he said. “But one homeowner had Verizon phone records documenting the calls and that was entered into evidence.”The team of lawyers and the homeowners filed suit against the city and one of its contractors, CAC, which made the repairs on the water main in September 2000, seeking an award that could reimburse those who had fixed the damage and those whose properties were so badly damaged that the price of repairs was greater than the value of the house.”If you look at the houses, they're all tilted toward the street” where the compromised foundations had given way, he said. “The jury believed that excessive water flowing from broken mains caused the soil to settle.”
