Published: July 03, 2008 10:25 pm      

Greenbrier County jury awards $4.12 million to quarry in bank lawsuit

LEWISBURG — In what is believed to be the largest one-time civil trial award in Greenbrier County history, a jury awarded a rock quarry owner $4.12 million in damages in his countersuit against a bank which claimed his business lost profits because the bank soured an agreement involving a $300,000 rock crusher.

The three-man, three-woman jury deliberated for about three hours earlier this week before returning the historic award against North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank and Trust Co., which operates offices in Lewisburg, Ronceverte, and White Sulphur Springs, according to its Web site www.firstcitizens.com.

“I believe this could be the largest, unsealed civil trial jury award the county has had,” Circuit Clerk Louvanne Arbuckle said. “It’s the largest that I am aware of.”

Quarry owner Earl M. Quick Jr., of Alderson, originally was sued by First Citizens in 2004 when the bank alleged that Quick owed them $300,000 because he defaulted on a loan for the purchase of a rock crusher, according to Quick’s lawyer, Kenneth Webb Jr. of the Charleston firm of Bowles Rice McDavid Graff & Love,

“The bank was going to rent the rock crusher to Mr. Quick for a five-year period and then he would be able to buy it for a nominal fee,” Webb said by phone late Thursday. “However, the bank sent large payments to the vendor, Hamilton High Heat, without Mr. Quick’s authorization.”

When Quick complained to the bank, Webb said, the bank said he had only two options, either sign documents saying he had authorized the payment or else repay the money to the bank.

“That was not true,” Webb said.

In the countersuite, Webb said the rock crusher never worked properly and testimony showed that Quick had buyers who would have agreed to purchase over 30,000 tons of crushed rock from him every year for five-and-a-half years.

“The jury awarded the money on the basis that Mr. Quick would have made net profits of $25 a ton for each year selling crushed rock at his quarry near Muddy Creek Mountain,” Webb said.

Lawyers for First Citizens, which was represented by Spilman Thomas & Battle, did not return messages left Thursday.

— E-mail: cgiggenbach@register-herald.com