GARRARD COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) – The case of a 2018 fire at a Garrard County business, which led to a closing-and-lease dispute, is now being litigated in Lexington.
The owners of the property where Rocky Top Furniture sits say they are on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and want someone held accountable for what happened.
After the Rocky Top property was abandoned in November, Sandra Spurgeon says her clients, the Mitchells, collected evidence that showed a conspiracy to destroy the property.
“Cardinal Capital Group, all the Cardinal defendants, Alvan McQueen the second, Roundwood, was that they were conspiring to void this lease agreement,” Spurgeon told LEX 18.
Attorneys for the Cardinal defendants say a lease agreement was made with Rocky Top LLC, not the individuals.
“So it doesn’t matter if Rocky Top never paid its lease agreement, you can’t get to the Cardinal defendants,” Jacinta Porter told LEX 18’s Conroy Delouche
Spurgeon says the original lease was for ten years, but that Cardinal defendants only had a three-year plan, citing examples of failing to maintain the property.
“The health department requires a sewage system to be repaired that the lessees knew of in 2018 before the fire. It’s now on the Mitchells,” said Spurgeon.
The fire is another issue and Spurgeon says accidental causes of the fire have been ruled out. The attorney for the defendants argues against this.
“Her clients had control of the property from October, through the inspection period. They keep saying, oh well the fire system was turned off, or the dust collection system was turned off. We have no idea who turned it off, or if it was really turned off,” said attorney Jason Obermeyer.
The judge presiding will consider the evidence and decide whether the legal dispute will go to trial, or if the case will be dismissed.
