The ongoing saga of the legal battle between the City of SeaTac and K&S Development took a dramatic turn this past week when K&S (owned by Gerry and Kathy Kingen who also own Salty's Seafood Grills in West Seattle, Redondo and Portland) took the fight to the next level. See our previous coverage about the original court case and later accusations of the destruction of documents here.
Kingen said he has had to put on hold a variety of upgrades, improvements and development (including the construction of a West Seattle waterfront hotel adjacent to Salty's), all work that would bring jobs to the area, because of the millions of dollars he has had to spend in pursuit of a just outcome in the case.
Seeking some final positive resolution and the recovery of the legal fees incurred so far the Kingen's and their company named individuals associated with the city in a new lawsuit.
In a statement K&S and their attorneys said:
"K&S Development has individually sued public and elected officials of the City of SeaTac for their role in deceptively and unlawfully taking the SeaTac Center from K&S for millions less than the property’s true value. In its Complaint, filed with the federal district court for the Western District of Washington, K&S has sued City Attorney Mary Bartolo and Assistant City Attorney Mark Johnson for their role in the City’s deception. K&S also named former mayor Gene Fisher and current council members Tony Anderson and Pam Fernald.
This new lawsuit stems from a three-month King County trial where a jury found the City liable for having improperly used its powers to prevent K&S from developing its property into a viable park-and-fly commercial garage. The jury found City officials engaged in abuse of power, fraud and other subterfuge, including the use of a “phantom buyer,” to force K&S to relinquish ownership of the SeaTac property to advance their own development plans or, in the case of Mayor Fisher, to run out the Somali immigrants from his neighborhood.
Besides the jury’s verdict, King County Superior Court Judge Richard McDermott independently found City officials had broken promises and engaged in countless deceptive acts. He entered a judgement against the City for over $18,000,000 in damages. With interest, the City now owes K&S over $20,300,000.
Before entering final judgment, Judge McDermott blasted the City for what he found to be serious breaches of the trust and a pattern of deception:
[T]he City engaged in a pattern of deception that lasted years…. A government entity owes a duty of honesty and transparency to those people to whom they deal with…. There are all kinds of cases in this state which uniformly say that governments have to be open, honest, and straightforward in their dealings with everybody because that’s their job…. They represent us. And because of that, they have a duty of honesty and transparency. The City violated that duty so many times I’ve lost count[.] …. [T]he worst thing about this case is the actions of the City and how dishonest they were, and I find that to be completely and totally unacceptable.
With regard to the City officials, in particular the City Attorney’s Office, the judge stated:
[Cities] have a duty of honesty and transparency…. The period of deception even lasted through their answer in the public records request…. Why? Well, the City obviously had something to hide. So I find --- as someone who works for the government, I find this to be the worst thing about this case is the actions of the City and how dishonest they were, and I find that to be completely and totally unacceptable. I don’t know how the jury felt about it, but I can only suspect that was probably one of the reasons why they awarded the damages they did, because they felt the same way I did.
But there is certainly some evidence to suggest that during the course of the negotiations with K&S the City Attorney's Office participated in this profound and unacceptable pattern of deception. That violates the rules of professional conduct. That is totally and completely unacceptable to this court, and it should be to any court. Lawyers have rules that they have to abide by, and the very first rule of being a lawyer is to be honest, to not allow the client to dictate dishonesty. That was not complied with in this case. I have never filed a complaint against a lawyer, but I would seriously recommend that you take some advantage to do that, counsel, because that can't be allowed to exist…. That lawyer should by disciplined. We don't do that. Lawyers don't do that. We are held to a higher standard of care, and for us to disregard that and to allow our clients to dictate the terms of our performance is unacceptable.
The City appealed the jury’s verdict and the Judge’s ruling to the Washington Court of Appeals. That appeal is pending.
However, because of the judge’s condemnation of the city officials, and because these official refuse to have the City to pay the judgment, K&S has chosen to sue those public officials directly responsible for the City’s misconduct.
K&S’s owner, Gerry Kingen, states: “A city only acts through its public officials. The officials named in this new lawsuit were the ones who caused the City to violate our legal rights. Because many of those same officials continue to use their power to cause the City not to pay what a jury and judge said was owed, I am compelled to pursue my claims directly against the responsible officials. ”
Westside Seattle attempted to reach the individuals named in the new lawsuit but got no response. If statements are issued from the parties involved, this story will be updated.
