MILWAUKEE -- The company that built Miller Park's retractable roof filed an $87 million lawsuit Wednesday, charging the stadium district board with mismanaging the roof's construction and causing cost overruns.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' attorney, Dean Laing, said the board repeatedly "acted like rookies," lying when it told the public and officials the project was on time and on budget.

The board had agreed the roof might cost more than originally planned, but the $87 million figure is "wild, inflated and unfounded," said Evan Zeppos, a spokesman for the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District.

The board filed a lawsuit in January against Mitsubishi for $5 million, seeking damages for the firm's alleged negligence and poor management of the roof's construction. Both sides had been trying to reach a settlement on the money owed through mediation.

Mitsubishi's counterclaim "won't hold water in the court of public opinion, or in Milwaukee County Circuit Court," Zeppos said.

If Mitsubishi prevails in court, taxpayers in the five-county region who are paying a 0.1 percent sales tax to pay off the stadium bonds may be asked to pay the extra money.

Zeppos said Mitsubishi submitted cost overruns totaling $23 million in April 1998, which were rejected.

"Now they have a claim for $87 million. ... Nothing changed in between the two times except the tragic accident that Mitsubishi was responsible for," Zeppos said, referring to the July 1999 crane collapse that killed three workers. "They're reaching for straws to try to come up with some sort of plausible argument for the cost overruns."

A court found Mitsubishi negligent in the crane accident and awarded more than $99 million to the widows of the workers who died. Laing said the claim for costs is not related to the accident, and Mitsubishi's insurance companies have agreed to pay the families.