An appellate court ruling handed down Tuesday, Nov. 8, will apparently end a long-running lawsuit involving Jackson School District and a Farmington, Missouri, electrical contractor.

A three-judge panel of the Eastern District of Missouri Court of Appeals ruled in the district’s favor in a lawsuit, brought by Total Electric, that stems from a construction project more than a decade ago.

The district’s appeal of Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Lewis’s decision in April focused on three points. The district contended Lewis had erred in denying its motion for an order showing the district had satisfied the judgment with previous payments and changed the rate of interest due (from simple interest to compound interest), claiming the state’s Prompt Pay Act does not “provide for compound interest.”

The appellate justices ruled for the district overall, without addressing the issue of whether the district judge effectively changed the rate of interest due.

That ruling ends the suit, according to Danny Miller, chief operations officer of Total Electric.

“It’s not eligible for the Supreme Court, is my understanding, because it’s not based on the Missouri Constitution. Even in their appeal, they stated they understood this is it,” he said. “I think that is probably it. That means I probably lost about $3 million on this deal.”

Jackson superintendent Scott Smith said the district is ready to move beyond the suit.

“The District is pleased with the decision and what it means for our students and their education,” he said. “This litigation spanned more than a decade, through different administrations and different boards of education. While there have been multiple efforts to negotiate a resolution to this case over the years, those efforts did not result in a reasonable resolution that made sense for the Jackson R-2 School District and its mission to educate children and support our community. ... We are grateful to move beyond this litigation and return the attention to the continued good work and successes of our students. This decision is a win for them.”

The suit and another brought by Penzel Construction of Jackson, the general contractor for the project, cost the district millions, on top of the project’s $20 million price tag. The district lost the Penzel Construction portion of the suit and paid about $1.2 million. The district paid Total Electric about $4.5 million, and as of earlier this year, the district had paid about $2 million in legal expenses during the span of the suits.

Miller said he had been disappointed by some school district officials’ decisions over the course of the suit, noting he was not referring to the district’s current superintendent Scott Smith.

“I think Mr. Smith is probably a really decent person. He has bosses, but I think we would have had this settled a long time ago if it had been up to him,” Miller said.

Still, the lengthy legal process has left Miller somewhat jaded.

“I keep hearing what this can do to the school and how this will affect the school. I had 60 electricians. I had 20 trucks when this job took my operating capital, and I mean took it,” he explained. “We had to borrow against everything we had in order to keep in business, and then when you bring up a valid point, and they just kind of chuckle at you. ... It’s not pleasant.”

Saying he expected the appeal might go either way, Miller contended the final ruling could affect contractors going forward.

“I think this is a big miscarriage of justice, and the next guy who is treated like this is probably going to look at my case and say there is no way I can spend a million dollars on a lawyer and wait 13 years to get paid. So, the abuses ... there’s more coming,” he said.