An email ending up in a spam folder may cost Emerald Coast Utilities Authority ratepayers up to an additional $400,000 in an eminent domain lawsuit.

The Lewis Bear Co. filed a lawsuit against ECUA in 2007 over a dispute of the property value of an easement through the company’s property. ECUA used eminent domain to obtain the rights to bury a main sewer line through the property.

David Bear, vice president of the Lewis Bear Co., said his company has spent more than $1 million in legal fees since the suit began in 2007.

At the time, ECUA was building a sewer pipeline that ran from its old sewage treatment plant in downtown Pensacola to its new treatment plant in Cantonment.

Bear said ECUA’s payment for the condemned land was too low and didn’t take into account a decrease in value to the rest of the property with a major sewer line running through it.

Bear said his company tried to settle with ECUA several times before it went to trial.

Officials with ECUA referred the News Journal’s questions to the Odom and Barlow law firm, which did not return multiple calls seeking comment.

Lois Benson, chairwoman of the ECUA board, declined to comment, citing the ongoing nature of the lawsuit.

The case went to a jury trial in 2012, and the Lewis Bear Co. lost. However, Florida law requires the agency using eminent domain to reimburse the property owner’s legal fees whatever the outcome of the lawsuit, so the lawsuit dragged on.

The Lewis Bear Co. filed motions laying out their legal fees at approximately $600,000, and after 14 months with no response from ECUA, Escambia Circuit Judge Gary Bergosh ordered ECUA to pay the company’s legal fees, according to court documents.

The reason for the lack of response from ECUA was its law firm, Odom and Barlow, had an overzealous spam filter in its email system, according to court documents. Email notifications on the case from the court clerk were sent to the spam folder and deleted, the court documents state.

ECUA asked for a chance to appeal the order, citing that it never received notification from the court. Judge Bergosh denied the appeal, and ECUA took the case to the Florida First District Court of Appeal.

Almost 10 years after the case began, the court of appeal affirmed the judge’s decision in the case in a ruling filed Thursday.

Bear said his company’s legal fees in the case are now more than $1 million.

“We still don’t know what they’re going to do with that decision, if they’re going to appeal it or just pay us,” Bear said. “…They’ve just done everything they could to drag this out.”

Bear said he wonders how people without similar resources would be able to fight ECUA.

“We are fortunate enough to be able to afford to fight them in court,” he said.