Deer Park to sue contractor in Vehe Barn rehab

The village of Deer Park has moved closer toward a legal battle against contractor R & W Clarke Construction Inc. and others over the botched Vehe Barn restoration project.

Following a nearly two-hour closed session Tuesday night, the village board voted unanimously to authorize attorney Eric Stubenvoll to file a lawsuit against the construction firm and others involved in the project. There was no further discussion of the vote or of the pending litigation.

After the meeting, Trustee Keith Olson said a legal deadline and the need to know more information influenced the decision to file suit.

"We do not have what would be described as conclusive evidence," he said. "But the statute of limitations (on filing suit) is running and we don't have very much time left."

R & W Construction was originally hired to restore the barn in 2004, with the expectation that the project would be finished by 2005. The contractor was fired in 2007 with the project still uncompleted, and the restoration was finished by another company.

Filing suit will make it easier for the village to get the information to ascertain exactly what happened as part of the legal proceedings, said Olson.

"We wanted the ability to discover more information before it is too late," he said. "We are proceeding in a scientific manner, but we were not able to get some additional information. Having the ability to subpoena that information will be significant."

According to Trustee Maureen Pratscher, this is a refiling of a case from about a year ago. Pratscher would not give reasons why the board decided to refile the suit, citing the confidentiality of the closed-door session.

She did note that both R & W Clarke Construction and Richard Clarke individually were named in the suit because there were questions over whether the company was a legal corporation for the entirety of the original contract.

The earlier suit has been withdrawn.

Clark Construction didn't return a call Wednesday seeking comment.

Olson couldn't say exactly how long he thought the fact-finding process would last, but said he didn't imagine it would be too drawn out.

Stubenvoll declined to comment on exactly how filing a lawsuit would assist in the information gathering, but noted that he expected to have the lawsuit fully drafted and on file within a few weeks. From there, he said, standard court procedure would move the case toward discovery.