Monday, April 22, 2019

Loring contractor sues the city

From the MWDN:
FRAMINGHAM — A Connecticut company hired to rebuild Loring Arena claims the city is illegally withholding payments for its work, breaching a roughly $6 million contract.
Lupachino & Salvatore, the general contractor for the project, is suing Framingham in Suffolk Superior Court to recover money it claims is due for labor and materials.
The company, based in Bloomfield, Connecticut, signed a $5,634,000 contract with Framingham in January 2017. Work included renovating the hockey rink and building a new front entrance with a handicapped-accessible elevator.
City officials have since approved at least three major contract amendments, adding close to $300,000 to the total cost.
Work was scheduled to conclude by mid-August 2018, but the reopening of the arena was delayed as the city pressed the contractor to fix deficiencies in the work. Officials blamed construction errors and poor workmanship by subcontractors for the delays.

After reviewing the requests, the city’s architect levied what the contractor called “baseless backcharges” against the company, bringing the allowable amount for change orders to $25,272, according to the suit.
“The grounds provided by (the architecture firm) for rejecting these change order proposals are unfounded and represent little more than an attempt by the Town to avoid its obligation to pay L&S for extra and changed work performed at the Town’s direction,” the complaint reads.
The company alleges it is owed a little more than $1 million for the work performed at Loring. It also accuses the city of breaching its contract and state laws regarding payment requests.
The lawsuit includes two other counts accusing the city of acting in bad faith, and asking a judge to consider ordering the city to pay the company for the reasonable value of its work at the project site, rather than the amount remaining under the contract. L&S pegged the value of its work to date at more than $7 million, putting the theoretical value due at more than $1.8 million.

In an interview Friday, Petrini said the city found a number of defects with the contractor’s work, including defective and incomplete installations and change orders requests that were untimely, overpriced or lacking sufficient documentation.

To protect taxpayers, Petrini said the city is withholding remaining money due under the contract. Officials have also considered invoking their coverage under a construction bond for the project, which guarantees the work can be completed in the event of failures by a contractor.
“We feel they should step to the plate and get the work done,” Petrini said.
Petrini said the city will respond to the lawsuit in court within the next several weeks. He said the city anticipates filing counterclaims against Lupachino & Salvatore.
“We’re not going to pay money that we don’t feel is properly owed,” he said.

6 Comments:

At April 22, 2019 at 11:45 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why are we always being sued? If they have not done the job they were hired to do why would they think they should be paid when the work is not done? Begs the question of where the disconnect is between the city and the contractor that is resulting in additional legal expenses for this project.

 
At April 22, 2019 at 12:09 PM , Blogger jim pillsbury said...

At the last few years of Town Meeting, Loring came to ask for more money for the contractor. I remember the hockey moms taking over the article. They got the added funding, but everyone said.. no more. I spoke with Jim Paolini back then and he did say the contractor was doing shoddy work and some of it didn't pass building code inspection. If Paolini said the work wasn't done correctly, I would believe him. It was Paolini who first discovered the outside ADA compliance issues.
This type of problem should not take place years from now when the new Fuller school is completed. We have an overseer working for us.

 
At April 22, 2019 at 1:37 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

What do we do about this now? Is it worth it to incur legal expenses if we are going to lose the court case anyway, or are we likely to win this one?

 
At April 22, 2019 at 3:09 PM , Blogger jim pillsbury said...

I think it's a win for the City. Even I know that there were quality issue's there with the contractor and I do remember them having to tear up the ADA ramp because it was not compliant. I think the record may have been established and well documented. I don't think Jim Paolini would not authorize the payments if the work was done to the standards. The guy is taking us to court so we have to respond. I don't think it's a long dragged out court process, much will be already known when they hit the court house steps.

 
At April 23, 2019 at 7:59 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

OK, then lets hope you are right Jim. This gets settled fast and we are the winners in this lawsuit.

 
At June 19, 2019 at 6:36 AM , Anonymous Liftplus said...

Thanks for sharing, it was interesting to read!

 

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