What's the best one you have for restoration work that didn't 'have' to be done?

Over 33 years ago, I was an expert witness in Federal Court for an insured who was alleged to be a big mafia guy. He owned a barge company on the Mississippi River, and he owned an old coal fired power plant next to the Mississippi River. The power plant had burned coal and made electricity for many decades before being shut down. It was abandoned and unused.

One of the barge company's barges caught on fire and drifted down the Mississippi River, and happened to crash into the seawall next to the abandoned power plant and stayed there for a few minutes on fire. The smoke from the fire rose into the sky and covered the old smoke stacks. The reputed mafia guy sued the insurance company to have the smoke stacks cleaned from the smoke from the barge fire. Thirty minutes of smoke 'damage' to smoke stacks that had bellowed black coal smoke out for decades I was called in to give an expert's opinion on the cost to remove the smoke damage from the barge fire.

I'm not saying it was a BS lawsuit as the insurance company lost, based on my expert opinion, about the cost to clean the soot from the smoke stacks. I would have charged $60,000 in 1983 dollars to power wash them. In my expert opinion, there was soot on the smoke stacks however, we had no professional way of removing only the surface layer of soot without disturbing the 40 years of coal soot. The insurance company lost the suite and I was paid my Federal Court Expert Witness Fee. (Used it to buy my wife's wedding ring). I did not make a moral judgement on the suit, My best expert opinion was that I would charge $60,000 to clean smoke residue from 6 smoke stacks. I've never owned a power plant so I can't say that it didn't need to be cleaned. However, to this day I don't think the owner ever ever did get the work done. Surprise-Surprise.

Cheers:

Jim

Jim Thompson & Co. LLC

727 424 2000

www.jimthompsonco.com