By Jane Musgrave
A leaky stormwater drain pipe that went undetected for nearly 30 years has erupted into a court battle between a Delray Beach homeowner and the city.
In a lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court in February, Mary Anne Wood and her sons claim the city should pay for the damage the pipe has caused to the backyard of their roughly $4.6 million home — along an Intracoastal Waterway finger canal a few blocks north of Atlantic Dunes Park — for burying it on their property without permission.
While city officials initially indicated they would help the Woods, they later reneged, according to the lawsuit Fort Lauderdale attorney Jamey Campellone filed on behalf of the family. Since the pipe has been on the property for decades, Delray Beach officials told the family the city has what is known in the legal world as a “prescriptive easement.”
Under Florida law, someone can claim they are legally entitled to use someone else’s land if they have done so for at least 20 years and the property owner didn’t complain.
But, Campellone wrote, the pipe was buried underground. Wood and her late husband bought the home on Poinsettia Road, just north of Atlantic Dunes Park, in 1987. City officials never asked them for permission to run the pipe through their property and there is no record that they asked previous owners, he said.
The pipe was discovered in 2023 by crews hired to repair the property’s sea wall.
Since then, it has become apparent that the leaking pipe, which dumps stormwater into the Intracoastal, is causing the property to sink, Campellone wrote.
The city invaded the Woods’ property rights, interfered with their use and enjoyment of the property and never paid or offered to compensate them for its depreciation in value, he said.
Campellone declined to comment on the lawsuit. It did not detail how much the family is seeking, but only suits where more than $50,000 is at stake can be filed in circuit court.
As a policy, Delray Beach doesn’t comment on pending litigation. Attorneys at the Fort Lauderdale firm Weiss Serota Helfman Cole + Bierman are representing the city.
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