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Jury awards $3 million is civil suit By Carolyn Acree The Daily Sentinel Published February 2, 2006 A Jackson County jury Tuesday ordered Vulcan Materials Company, Southern Division to pay $3 million in punitive damages to James H. Blizard and Blizard Construction Company and Hollywood Materials, and ordered Vulcan and Jeffrey Chandler to pay an additional $130,000 in compensatory damages on claims of interference and breach of contract. The jury found in favor of Blizard’s claim against Vulcan for intentionally interfering with contractual or business relations and in favor of Blizard’s claim against Chandler for breach of contract. In Blizard’s additional four claims of fraud and one claim of civil conspiracy, the jury ruled in favor of the defendants. In his original complaint, filed in circuit court in August of 2000, Blizard, owner and operator of Blizard Construction and Hollywood Materials, a rock quarry and crushing business, asserted that, in 1996, he entered into a 10-year verbal agreement with Jeffrey Chandler to remove approximately 20,000 tons of shot rock from a Hollywood quarry Chandler owns. Blizard was to pay Chandler monthly royalties for the arrangement. Blizard further claimed that he had informed Chandler that he planned to spend $45,000 to crush the rock. Although the lease arrangement was to last through this year, Blizard claimed that in August of 1998, two years after the start of the lease, Chandler told him that the same property had been leased to Vulcan Materials Company, Southern Division, and “the defendants prohibited further operations by the plaintiff on the Chandler property,” according to the complaint. Blizard contended in his complaint that Vulcan Materials induced Chandler “not to perform” or “continue” the contract Chandler had made with Blizard, causing Blizard “economic damages.” He also claimed that Vulcan acted maliciously, “with the motive to disrupt or discontinue” Blizard’s business operations. Chandler led Blizard to believe that he would be able to use the property for the 10-year period, the complaint says. Blizard contended that he “relied on said representation and invested considerable sums,” but lost the money he had invested as well as future earnings on the property when Chandler “terminated the contract prior to the expiration of its term.” Blizard is represented in the case by Scottsboro attorney John Graham and the Birmingham firm Christian & Small. Graham said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on the case at this point. Chandler’s attorney, Jack Livingston, and Vulcan’s attorney, Gerald Paulk, did not return phone calls. Judge Jennifer Holt presided over the trial. Courthouse officials and jury foreperson Tina Dixon declined comment about the case, as did Blizard. The defendants have 30 days to ask the judge to set aside the verdict.
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