"Not content with having had its pie and eating it , too, the company now wants to recover the money it spent to fight BND."By Juan Montoya
In what must be regarded as the ultimate act of crassness, Houston-based Dannenbaum Engineering has sued its professional liability insurance provider for more than the $1 million it claims it cost the company to defend itself from litigation against the Brownsville Navigation District.
Dannenbaum, who received $15 million from the port to build its rail-truck bridge and delivered a few folders of engineering drawings in return, says the insurance company owes it the money because it only paid $445,100 instead of the $1.458 million it claims it paid to defend itself from the BND.
Dannenbaum, who received $15 million from the port to build its rail-truck bridge and delivered a few folders of engineering drawings in return, says the insurance company owes it the money because it only paid $445,100 instead of the $1.458 million it claims it paid to defend itself from the BND.
In a professionally detailed and descriptive story in the Brownsville Herald, Emma Perez-Treviño, as always, outlines the company's shenanigans at the port. First hired by the BND after being recommended by Texas State Sen. Eddie Lucio, it rapidly went through the port's bridge budget during a seven-year period from 1997 though 2004.
In those years, Dannenbaum paid out millions to subcontractors on the Mexican side, including three directly tied to DEC engineer Louis H. Jones Jr. Despite this, BND did not recover any of the money from Dannenbaum and the board settled for a promised of $2.9 million in work to complete the engineering on the U.S. side of the border.
Cameron County DA Armando Villalobos did get $1 million after it sued the company claiming the funds were stolen or misapplied from BND.
The taxpayers an their offspring in the district who will ultimately pay for the $21 million in bonds issued for the bridge that was never built, got nothing in return.
Not content with having had its pie and eating it , too, the company now wants to recover the money it spent to fight BND.
"This is just so cynical of the firm," said a longshoreman at the Blanco's watering hole. "It basically was allowed to take all that money without justification, and then they want to sue the company that insured their legal defense. No tienen verguenza."
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