Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton is suing the County Council and officials to keep them from "interfering" with the operation of his office, several months after Council froze a budget item affecting the company tasked with the pickup and transport of deceased people.
The 81-page summons and complaint, filed Wednesday at the courthouse, lists Aiken County, the County Council and County Administrator Clay Killian as defendants. Carlton has retained Charleston attorney Sandy Senn.
As of Thursday afternoon, no answers had been filed by the defendants. The defendants have 30 days to respond to the complaint.
Clash over procurement
According to the suit, Carlton and County officials have "clashed" over whether the County can "properly use the procurement process to force" Carlton to hire deputies to assist him with removing bodies.
"The Coroner takes the position that only he can select his deputies, and the removal of dead bodies should not be let out for bid when the Coroner is statutorily responsible for the conduct of his deputies," the complaint states.
" ... While in general, the Coroner agrees that the procurement process plays an important role in the fiscal responsibility of government, the removal of dead bodies is not a service appropriately awarded to the lowest bidder, especially since he has the ultimate statutory authority for body removals."
The suit states that the issue "came to a head" in late 2013, when the Aiken County Procurement Division not only let out a bid for contract with the County to remove dead bodies from Aiken, but did not follow a list of rules and specifications mandated by Carlton for body removal.
The bid was initially sent out after Killian came to Council, asking members to validate a formal contract with Langley-based company Rucker Removal Services, a company the County has used since the early 1990s.
A month later, in July 2013, the Judicial and Public Safety Committee, made up of Council members, decided to go in another direction and instead bid out the service.
Carlton wrote a letter to Council in November 2013, recommending the bid be awarded to the second low bidder, Rucker Removal Service, mainly because it was a local company with "a long-standing relationship with the Aiken community." Instead, Council awarded the bid to Palmetto Mortuary Transport, a Lexington County company, who came in with a lower bid - $160 to Rucker's $175 per local removal.
Palmetto would have difficulty meeting several of the requirements, according to the suit, which stated Palmetto personnel had never testified in court and had no experience with photography, lab work or preparation of bodies for external examination, whereas Rucker personnel had.
Palmetto Mortuary did receive a contract for services when awarded the bid, but Don Lintal, Palmetto's president, told the Aiken Standard the contract was never signed or returned, stating there were "too many issues."
Relying on 'professional courtesy' now
At a January 2014 Council meeting, Carlton informed Council he would not be working with Palmetto, deciding instead to continue with Rucker.
"As a result, the County then did not enter a contract with Palmetto as it had voted to do per resolution," the complaint states.
"Therefore, there is currently no existing contact for body removal services in Aiken County, yet the County has withdrawn appropriated funds for body removals."
Council froze the line item funds of around $50,000 in June 2014 that it had earlier appropriated for the transport, leaving Carlton to rely on the "professional courtesy" of Rucker to remove the bodies without pay until the issue is resolved.
Just one day before the suit was filed this week, Rucker attorney Kristina Anderson sent a letter on behalf of the company that they would cease providing removal and transportation services starting May 15 because of outstanding invoices that the company is owed by the County.
Anderson wrote in her letter to Carlton's attorney and Aiken County Attorney Jim Holly that Rucker has nearly $41,000 in outstanding invoices, amassed from April 25, 2014, through March 6, for removal services provided in Aiken County. Rucker has not received payment since mid-April 2014, around the time when Council froze the budget line item for the pickup and transportation of the deceased.
"The sad truth of the matter is that Rucker is no longer in a position to further await some resolution by (Aiken) County and Coroner Carlton regarding the provision of this service and the release of the funds set aside for payment," Anderson wrote. "Rucker will be unable to continue to provide these services in the future unless they are paid for the invoices previously submitted."
'No choice'
Carlton said in his complaint that the County froze the funds appropriated for body removal to "force" him to work with a nondeputized low bidder.
"Unless this court intervenes, the Coroner has no choice but to personally oversee and move all bodies in Aiken County himself with far too few vehicles and without adequate manpower," the complaint states. "Such is a practical impossibility. The court's emergency intervention and injunction is needed."
Carlton is asking for an emergency temporary injunction "enjoining the County from interfering with the smooth operation" of his office.
He also asks for a judgment declaring that the County cannot use procurement services to replace his deputies; that the County must "adequately fund" his office; that it must release the funds necessary to pay for body removals and replace the frozen funds; and that the County violated the Freedom of Information Act and due-process requirements by issuing a "materially-misleading" agenda by failing to give adequate notice to elected officials, vendors and the public of the true agenda.
Killian said, in respect to the suit, he would not have any comment at this time.
Teddy Kulmala is the crime and courts reporter with Aiken Standard. Follow him on Twitter @teddy_kulmala.
Maayan Schechter is the local government reporter with Aiken Standard. Follow her on Twitter @MaayanSchechter.