The federal judge who oversaw the Tampa Bay Water v. HDR Engineering trial has rejected the utility’s motion for a new trial. In a ruling issued Aug. 3, Judge James D. Whittemore rejected TBW’s legal argument for a new trial that asserted that he had erred by rejecting key evidence and lines of inquiry from the original trial. Despite the ruling, the regional water authority plans to forge ahead with its appeal.
In April, after a nearly month-long trial, a jury took just under four hours to decide that HDR’s design was not responsible for the severe cracking occurring at the utility’s 15.5-billion-gallon reservoir in Lithia, Fla. And in his latest ruling, the judge strongly suggested that the jury got it right.