STUART — A group of residents suing Martin County because they contend the extension of airport runways at Witham Field has damaged their property values will have to wait until December to find out how the trial will be handled.

Attorneys for the group have filed motions asking they be allowed to file a class-action suit, a request opposed by Martin County, which operates Witham Field.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Metzger said Wednesday she would set aside three days, Dec. 1-3, to hear arguments for a class-action suit in the 5-year-old legal dispute.

The property owners contend that by extending runways at the airfield to accommodate jet traffic, the county has taken their lands by reducing its value. Their original suit citing the Florida Constitution was dismissed, said Mark S. Demorest, attorney for the group. He said this fourth-amended complaint being heard by Judge Metzger is based on the U.S. Constitution.

Attorneys Anthony Gonsales and Scott Konopka, representing the county and its insurance company, agreed to the December hearing, which they said would show there is no “class” or group of similarly situated plaintiffs in the case.

Demorest said no matter how the judge rules, the case would go to trial sometime next year if there is no settlement with the county. The difference, he said, would be whether the property owners were suing as individuals or as representatives of a larger group of residents around the airport.

“If it is a class action, residents residing near the airport would be asked if they wanted to be represented in the suit, or if they did not want any part in the action,” said Demorest.

He said a class action would eliminate the need for “thousands of individual suits against the county over the airport.”

By Joe Crankshaw, TCPalm.com

Tags: airports, attorney, dispute, extension, Florida, insurance, judge, lawsuit, property, settlement, Stuart, Traffic, trial, value

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 9:30 am and is filed under Courts, Stuart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.