In an emergency, early-morning meeting Friday, Key West city officials voted to settle the Duck Tours Seafari lawsuit for $8 million.

The money will come from the city's reserves, City Manager Jim Scholl said.

The settlement is due by April 20. Following that, the city will have about $4 million remaining in its general fund reserves, said city spokeswoman Alyson Crean.

The settlement decision came after a week of testimony during which lawyers for the city tried to convince the eight-person jury that the Duck Tours company was worth about $1.4 million in 1996, when the city forced it out of business with illegal franchise agreements with Historic Tours of America. Lawyers representing the Duck Tours told the jury the business was worth about $13 million.

It would have been up to the jury to decide on a value somewhere between the two figures, and any award would be subject to interest that had accrued since 1996, City Attorney Shawn Smith told the City Commission, as he outlined best- and worst-case scenarios.

If the jury had sided with the city and awarded the Duck Tours $1.4 million, the city would have had to pay a total of $4.5 million. A jury award of $13.5 million would have cost the city $30.5 million, City Attorney Shawn Smith said.

There also was a good chance the jury would have "split the baby" and awarded the Duck Tours $6.5 million -- halfway between the two figures, Smith said. That would have cost the city $15.4 million, Smith said.

The Key West City Commis-sion voted 6-1 in favor of the settlement. Mayor Morgan McPherson dissented, saying the city should take its chances that the jury would award Duck Tours less than $3 million.

Attorney Mark Miller, who has been representing the city at trial, recommended that city officials approve the settlement.

"While I think this jury is convinced that $13.5 million is not realistic, I don't think a judgment of $3 million or more is unrealistic," Miller said.

In 2007, a different jury decided the city had violated antitrust laws, and ruled that Duck Tours owners were entitled to damages. That jury ruled the city owed Duck Tours $13 million.

The city appealed that figure and the new trial to calculate the damages started in Key West last week.

Smith told the commissioners Friday morning that settlement negotiations had continued throughout the two-week trial, and as of Friday "the numbers we were authorized to settle with, and the numbers they presented started to get closer to each other."

Attorney Mick Barnes, who represented the Duck Tours owners, was unavailable for comment Friday, as he was on an airplane, his assistant said.

mbolen@keysnews.com