A local developer isn’t giving up on his long-running legal battle, seeking $28.5 million in damages from the City of Brampton, despite a court ruling in January dismissing the suit.

In an appeal filed on Feb. 11, lawyers for Inzola Group Limited claimed Ontario Superior Court Justice John R. Sproat “erred in law” and made “overriding errors in fact” in his 92-page decision dismissing the lawsuit on Jan. 11.

“The Trial Judge’s legal conclusion that the City did not breach its duty of fair and equal treatment — including its duty to exercise its discretion with regard to disqualification fairly and equally — by disqualifying Inzola and its proposal from the RFP was in error because it is unsupported by, and in fact inconsistent with, the factual findings he made,” said Inzola in its appeal filing, a copy of which was obtained by the Brampton Guardian.

Inzola first filed suit in 2011, claiming it was unfairly disqualified from the 2009 Southwest Quadrant request for proposal (RFP) due to alleged bias and political interference by former mayor Susan Fennell and city staff against Inzola and its owner John Cutruzzola. The project was awarded to Dominus Construction Group after Inzola's disqualification.

Inzola argued it would have been the preferred respondent had it been allowed to continue in the RFP process, and was therefore entitled to lost profits.

After years of pre-trial proceedings, eight weeks of testimony in Orangeville court and reviewing more than 20,000 documents, Justice Sproat disagreed.

“I, therefore, find that Dominus was selected as the Preferred Respondent based on the merits of its Final Offer and not by reason of any political interference or partiality,” he wrote. “If Inzola was correct one would expect these City officials to rig the process so that they could dictate the result. In fact they did just the opposite,”

The appeal claims Sproat’s decision erred in law in several regards, arguing Dominus should also have been disqualified, while maintaining Inzola was a victim of bias and political interference.

“The trial judge erred in law by finding that the City’s duty of fair and equal treatment did not require the City to adhere strictly to the rules it had established for itself in the RFP process,” read the appeal.

One element of the appeal surrounded testimony given by former Brampton coun. John Sprovieri about a property at 20 George St., which was part of the Dominus proposal.