For the third time in five years, Dennis McDonald, a four-time candidate for local office, for years (but no longer) a fixture at local government meetings, and the husband of School Board member Janet McDonald, is suing Palm Coast government–again over a trip and fall on a city sidewalk, as was the case in 2015. McDonald has also initiated civil actions against county commissioners.
So far McDonald is barely ahead of the city in the duel, at least financially. This time he’s asking for $120,000 in damages following a fall before last Christmas on a sidewalk at Palm Harbor Golf Course, the city-owned property. “I’m out taking a walk with my wife and I end up face down on the ground with a busted hip,” McDonald said. He had to have the hip replaced. “It was an interesting odyssey to say the very least, and I don’t recommend it.”
And it was, in his words, a matter of “here we go again.”
“This is a little bit different situation,” McDonald said, comparing it to the first time he sued after falling on a sidewalk, following an in jury that was minor in comparison. “We know why the city took over the golf course: because the golf course was totally being mismanaged and nobody was doing anything other than collecting the green fees and mowing the lawns. The difference here is the severity of the injury. I used to have a perfectly good left hip.”
While recovering, McDonald read about the latest survey of Palm Coast residents, who regularly rate city services and amenities. Sidewalk maintenance got poorer marks, with 52 percent calling it only fair or poor in 2017, down from 67 percent in 2013, the year when McDonald first tripped on a city sidewalk. The figure is a reflection of residents’ dissatisfaction with a lack of sidewalks, highlighted by a spate of pedestrian injuries and fatalities in 2017.
On Feb. 20, Jim Manfre, the former Flagler County sheriff who’s returned to private practice as an attorney, running his own firm, wrote City Clerk Virginia Smith of McDonald’s intention to sue and claim negligence on the city’s part. He cited the Dec. 16, 2017 incident and referred to a “one inch depression in the sidewalk” that caused McDonald to fall. “He endured seventy two hours of intense pain until surgery could be scheduled and continues to suffer pain and discomfort due to the injury,” Manfre wrote. “He now walks with a slight limp.”
Manfre added: “I look forward to negotiations to settle this claim prior to the one hundred and eighty day time period to file an action with the Circuit Court.”
“The city doesn’t take much care of anything, it was very interesting what we learned the first time around,” McDonald said. Walking trails are among the city’s most prized developments in the last few years, but they’re distinct from its sidewalks. Asked about his chronic suing of the city, McDonald said he had no response other than to point to the survey. “And here we go again, and I’m sure there’s lots of other people. How this happens to me like this is just unbelievable. It’s like lightning striking twice.”
“Obviously we received the letter notifying us of their intention to sue and we have, as we have done in the past with these filings, forwarded it to our insurance company for them to handle the situation,” Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland said.
“We have grounds crew maintenance that’s there on site,” the mayor continued, referring to Palm Harbor Golf Course, “maintaining the facility, that certainly would have notified us if there was an issue of concern. We maintain all of our facilities under our current plan, and our public works crew immediately are out there under any such complaint or concerns from a resident.”
McDonald’s first lawsuit, in 2013, was an attempt to keep the city from uprooting trees in developments along Palm Coast Parkway. The city fought back, termed the lawsuit inaccurate and won a judgment that not only called the lawsuit frivolous, but ordered McDonald to pay the city $8,000 in legal fees (McDonald did). His attorney at the time was also ordered to do likewise.
That was on Jan. 30, 2015. Less than eight weeks later, on March 23, McDonald sued the city over a fall he took on a sidewalk while walking along Clubhouse Drive, hurting his hand. The suit was filed two years to the day after the fall, charging negligence against the city.
A sidewalk inspector then employed by the city as an equipment operator and sidewalk inspector, described in a deposition doing those inspections while riding a Gator cart or parking it and walking the sidewalk and looking for “hairline cracks” and “fractures” in the cement. (The inspector was blind in one eye, as he told the attorneys during the deposition.) But based on photographs he described a “misleveling” in the sidewalk where McDonald tripped—something worse than a crack—and that it would have been recorded and known as such by the city, if procedure was followed. On the other hand, city documents never made clear whether the area where McDonald fell had been inspected.
The case went to mediation, and the city agreed to settle, paying McDonald $9,000, much of which would likely have been paid his attorney, Ward Berg. The city’s insurer paid the amount. The agreement stipulated that it was subject to approval by the Palm Coast City Council “within 20 days” of its signature, on April 11, 2016. (The following day, the city Attorney, Bill Reischmann, told the council of a needed closed-door session on the matter on April 19, but there is no record of the item on the council’s agendas for approval through May 17 that year. Council members may discuss strategy but are prohibited from taking votes behind closed doors, even on legal matters.)
McDonald has also filed ethics complaints about county commissioners through the Florida Ethics Commission and, identically, through the state Elections Commission. The complaints were all thrown out, the ethics complaints being termed frivolous, causing county government in turn to go after McDonald, among others, for repayment of legal fees, and in amounts far exceeding the fees Palm Coast sought from McDonald and his attorney.
McDonald has run for the county commission twice, for state Senate once and for Palm Coast mayor once. He has not won an election.
Stan says
Dennis McDonald ,thank you for giving me his name, so I can keep him away from my property!! Talk About TheLuck Of The Irish,This guy better get a DNA test before he kills himself ,or the city goes broke.
Bc. says
Sounds like a shady money sue hound.
Ron says
This guy needs to get a life.
Robert Lewis says
Manfre is looking for his pot of gold. You’ve got to be kidding me. This failure of a human being created whose reign of terror resulted in the decline of our sheriffs office. I’ve never been so glad to see the end of this error. It makes perfect sense that MacDonald teams up with Manfre. They are both two of the most slimmest and unethical human beings to walk the face of this earth. So glad the voters rejected these losers.
Anonymous says
Looks like he is a sore loser. The city though sucks at maintaining anything, but the flowers on Palm Coast and Belle Terre Parkway. They need to pay up. This guy needs better glasses!
Anonymous says
This guy sounds like an entitled oppositional pain in the neck who needs to get a life that doesn’t entail suing people. Someone should be taking action legally against him for the frivolous lawsuits he seems addicted to. He is wasting the government and courts’ time and the city’s money.
Daphne says
As someone with severe foot drop, one leg I cannot feel from the knee down, and several screws and rods in my back from a fall in 2005, I can say this guy is oblivious to his surroundings. I have not fallen once since the fall that caused my permanent injuries. I did not sue! If you have eyes and half a brain you need to Pay Attention when you’re walking! And you best believe I’m hyper aware of my surroundings since that fall! Where is HIS culpability! I’m sorry but I’m not buying the bs he’s selling! He’s suing Again?!?! Absurd!
Rick Kang says
Wonder how many people have trip and falls on city property?
palmcoaster says
I know of one with devastating elbow and shoulder injuries extensive surgery, so costly to the young man given the fact that could not afford medical insurance and had none years ago…over a faulty lay out of asphalt on a city street..
Also an elderly lady that slide and was able to brake a fall preventing in this manner injury in the slimy Florida Park Drive sidewalk given the swamp permanently over flowing/draining for weeks and months from inside Holland Park along the sidewalk and right of way to the point that adjacent neighbors placed a couple of cardboard boards to cross the street over the forever muddy right of way there. So we call and call the city over the mess but the manager always comes of with excuses to resolve the issue…as is too busy gearing our taxes to buy property (approved in yesterday’s agenda the purchase $201,000 of the Hayden property next to incoming Wa Wa in Town Center) and beautification around town center and of course alleges that are no funds to resolve the leak from inside the swamp left in Holland Park. This is another disaster sidewalk waiting for injuries as well and is the reason for spending our taxes in expansion and expansion to benefit developers and no proper maintenance of our existing infrastructure.
Lovely Lady says
Several months ago while walking on the brick sidewalk around the pond at Town Center I slipped on some slime on the outer edges of the walk way. I landed on my knee. Some workers were nearby. They either didn’t see me or chose to ignore what they saw. It took me awhile to get back to my car. I just wanted to get home and ice it. Stupidly, I never reported it. It took at least three months for it to feel normal again. Whenever I go back to walk there I make very sure there is nothing to make me slip. Funny, but that slime isn’t around any of the walk anymore.
palmcoaster says
How many times I have reported to city the caved in drainage in front lawns and right of ways under those heavy metal grids that need to be rebuilt with maybe couple of pieces of concrete block and mortar and the land around it back filled and sodded to properly fit and hold the grid in place like was when installed originally by ITT ICDC on the early eighties while the land around it has been caving in with no repair since then?
What are we waiting for maybe a small child can fall and get hurt or drown on the culvert leading to the ponds or canals several feet below ground level? Also a family domestic pet can fall thru it as well.
I see the large backhoe trimmer working all along in isolated Old Kings Road South for miles of clearing and open 20 or more foot shoulder of brush and branches where no homes are, but along Florida Park Drive branches sticking out of public and private lots hit cyclist and make walkers dodge them on the sidewalk and the city after being reported many times does nothing…like a slap on those residents faces.
They don’t do it because our taxes are only used for expansion, expansion infrastructure and buying properties at overpriced values and beautifying around Town Center or leading to it while our old one is neglected.
Why is that we do not have any more lawsuits because at least a potential one that I know with long term effect of arm and shoulder injury and no health care insurance to cover it, against our city government, due to lack of funds of the plaintiff went nowhere. Pretty good reason why there are no other lawsuits…the small against the mighty and unfortunately not all will end like David and Goliath.
MannyHMo says
Jury members should carefully analyze these claims if they are valid and have merits.
john Dolan says
The infrastructure in Palm Coast is crumbling and there is no Herculean effort to get it fixed. Code enforcement and fines are all that seems to matter. How about striping some roads like Whiteview so people will know where they are on the road at night in the rain. The pumping stations are not keeping up with the sewage in my neighborhood and the swales are overgrown. What about getting these vacant lots cleaned up by the owners, talk about a fire hazard! Buy the way since anyone has not noticeD, WE NEED A NEW POST OFFICE. 8 MILLON FOR A COMMUNITY CENTER?
I Be Erudite says
The City of Palm Coast should trespass him from any future use of their sidewalks.