The filing, which comes after the failure of months of negotiations between the court and Obermayer, means that the tangled dispute over who knew what in the Family Court deal may finally be aired in public.
With the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania now acting as the developer, construction on the building is under way. After public bids, the cost for the project came in at $140 million, far less than Rotwitt's original $200 million estimate.
The original deal, supervised personally by Castille, blew up in May 2010 when The Inquirer published a story detailing Rotwitt's dual roles: as the public's representative and as one-half of a project team with builder Donald W. Pulver, splitting the development fees 50-50.
Rotwitt has insisted that he never tried to hide his arrangement with Pulver - from Castille, from his partners at Obermayer, or anyone else.
It first came to light when he told Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron that he was being paid as Pulver's codeveloper.
"As we have previously stated, Mr. Rotwitt's widespread and prior disclosure was documented in writing," said his attorney, Catherine M. Recker.
"Consequently, this is a baseless suit and Mr. Rotwitt will respond accordingly."
Obermayer fired Rotwitt a week after The Inquirer report, with its top lawyers saying they, too, knew nothing about the side development deal - even though Rotwitt, in an e-mail to other Obermayer lawyers, had spelled it out more than two years earlier.
In a statement, partner Thomas A. Leonard said he was sure "an unbiased and appropriate judicial process" would show that the news about Rotwitt's dealings had not reached the top lawyers in the firm.
"The firm views this dispute as one between the Chief Justice and Mr. Rotwitt," the statement says.
