Collier family business calls creosote lawsuit baseless

Thirteen years ago, Miles Collier and the Collier Development Corp. signed a consent order with the state agency now known as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The deal required a new source of clean drinking water and the removal of contaminated soil in Jerome, a former lumber mill town ravaged by a 1956 fire.

Now, 49 current and former residents of the eastern Collier County town, or their descendants, are suing two Collier family companies for negligence, claiming that a wood preservative known as creosote contributed to remarkably high rates of cancer, birth defects, infertility and other ailments.

And Collier, through his attorneys, says he's too busy to answer questions about the consent order, the family companies' corporate structure and other issued raised by the lawsuits, which were filed in late September.

A request by Don Russo, the plaintiffs' attorney, to depose Miles Collier and his cousin, Barron Collier III, "appears to be calculated to harass the defendants," defense attorneys wrote in a Nov. 14 motion for a protective order. "These gentlemen are senior managers of large corporate enterprises who have limited time. They should not be subjected to such depositions without good reason."

A 20th Judicial Circuit Court officer who heard that argument this week agreed. On Nov. 20, Special Master Lawrence Pivacek sided with the defense request and delayed a series of depositions scheduled for the next day.

He instead told the two sides to complete the seven depositions by Jan. 30, assuming the complaint survives a defense motion to dismiss. Circuit Judge Ted Brousseau is set to hear that dismissal request next month.

From 1940 through 1956, the C.J. Jones Lumber Co. operated a massive sawmill and adjoining town in Jerome, which sits along State Road 29 north of Everglades City and south of Immokalee. Jones leased the land from Southwest Florida's original real estate baron, Barron G. Collier, grandfather of Miles and Barron III.

The fire that destroyed the mill dumped untold amounts of creosote, a coal-tar derivative, onto the Collier land. Three decades later, state regulators who responded to complaints of foul-smelling tap water found remnants of the chemical in the surrounding groundwater and in several samples taken from private wells, records show.

In the motion to dismiss, Collier Development Corp. and its corporate spin-off, Collier Enterprises Inc., point out that Collier Enterprises never owned the property and Collier Development didn't acquire title to the property until 1961, five years after the fire. The land is now part of the Big Cypress National Preserve after a Collier family land swap with the federal government.

"Mere ownership of land at some point does not make defendants liable for negligence," the motion reads.

The Barron Collier Cos., which formed when the two grandsons and other heirs divided the family assets, is not a party to the lawsuit. Russo said he has deposed Barron Collier III to learn more about the federal land swap, which included property from both sides of the Collier family.

The defense response also takes Russo to task for failing to "establish how any of the claims can be brought nearly 50 years after the fire, or which otherwise support a claim upon which relief can be granted."

But Russo, a Miami attorney who specializes in so-called "toxic tort" complaints, said that's precisely the sort of information that will emerge in open court.

"There's a time and a place for everything in litigation," he said at the hearing. "What is pled in the complaint are the facts of the case."

Collier family attorney Stephen Corse, also of Miami, declined further comment after the hearing. Neither Miles Collier nor Barron Collier III could be reached for comment.