President Tom Davis, called the meeting to order and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pastor Micah Sievenpiper provided us with a prayerful Invocation. Tom Woolwine led us in singing, Happy Birthday, to our January Birthday Rotarian Club members: Jim Porter, Rose Ryan, Tony Andresen, Mary Kingsley, and Kim Beatty.
Club Anniversaries as follows: Matt Meyer – 27 yrs Jan 2. Christy Chester - 33 yrs Jan 3, John Gillis – 12 yrs Jan 5, Joe Privitera– 12 yrs Jan 5., Tom Van Dyke -19 yrs Jan 6, Jane Lee *15 yrs Jan 8 (*plus additional years with another club, totaling 33 Rotary years!)
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
This week’s Greeters were the January Birthday Rotarians
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Firesides: Feb 1st at Linn Mills’ residence; Feb 6th at Jane Lee’s residence; Feb 8th at Pete Sotta’s residence
Upcoming Meetings: Bring a Guest:
Jan 18th: Mary Heinrich, Children’s Mercy, “ Illuminate Mental Health Plan for Children”
Jan 25th: Lindsey Rood-Clifford, Starlight Theatre
Feb 29th 6 to 9 pm Rotary Roundup at the Rotary Youth Camp with BBQ, Dancing, Cash Bar & more. Other Rotary Club have been invited as well.
Feb 29th is a 5th Thursday, so NO downtown Club lunch – go the Rotary Roundup !
PRESENTATION:
At the last minute, President Tom Davis filled in for our scheduled speaker, Courtney Brooks, who had illness in her family. Tom presented a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Grapes on Fire (the JJ’s Wine Claim)”, with plenty of photographs, many of which were court exhibits. Back in 2013, JJ’s Restaurant was in a separate building (a former furrier business) across the street from the construction zone of what later would be become the Polsinelli building. JJ’s had a thriving restaurant and bar business, with an extensive wine inventory acquired over many years. Across the street, Time Warner’s sub-contractor was engaged in horizontal directional drilling an to underground channel for fiber optic lines. The sub-contractor had to carefully monitor it’s drill head position to avoid hitting other pipes, such as the high pressure 2-inch natural gas line. The gas line was punctured. The escaping underground gas in seeking its way out, pursued the line of least resistance, leading directly to JJ’s Restaurant with the resulting explosion and fire.
Tom’s firm, Stinson LLP, while usually on the defense side, represented the plaintiffs, JJ’s owners, in their litigation claim for the business contents (including an extensive wine inventory, bar & whiskey inventory, artwork, equipment & furniture,) and business interruption. The major & most interesting piece was the wine inventory. Besides the regular in restaurant wine inventory, there was a separate wine vault (a carryover from the furrier business days) that partially protected some wine. The Stinson legal team hired a nationally known local wine expect, Doug Frost, regarding the values of the various wines. In addition to individual wines, there were “verticals”, meaning multiple years of the same wine. Doug was able to sample taste the wines to determine that the sudden intense heat had in fact the damage the wine.
Separately the Stinson legal team brought in another expect, more involved with wine fraud investigation. The defendants were arguing that the “vault wine” could be salvaged, reducing the claimable loss. Stinson’s fraud expert presented the position that all the glass wine bottles had to be destroyed as well to prevent the possible refilled bottle being sold as the original wine content. The jury agreed with the plaintiff’s on $1,352,738 wine loss verdict.
The verdict was paid primarily by Time Warner, who hired the subcontractor. The subcontractor had six million dollars in insurance coverage. The combined claims of all injured parties represented by different attorneys & firms totaled sixty million. As fate would have it, JJ’s relocated across the street in the Polsinelli building, whose construction set the stage for the exploration.
It was a very interesting presentation on a major event in Kansas City’s history.
Please join the Rotary Book Discussion Group for the discussion of the book West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. The book is available at Rainy Day Books and the discussion will be led by Vivien Jennings. All Rotarians and guests are welcome. The group will meet at J. Wilbur Company; however, Zoom will be available for those you cannot attend in person. 
Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.
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