City’s water plant lawsuit spawns more litigation

COLUMBUS — The engineering firm that’s being sued by the city of Logan over alleged defects in the design and construction of the city’s four-year-old water treatment plant has answered the suit, denying its key allegations.

Defendant Stantec Consulting Services, Inc., has also filed a crossclaim against Fluidra USA, LLC, the second company named as a defendant in the city’s lawsuit, and has filed a third-party complaint against yet another company, AECOM Global II, LLC, which served as a subcontractor on the water plant project.

As previously reported in The Logan Daily News,on May 30 the city filed suit against Stantec and Fluidra in Hocking County Common Pleas Court. The complaint alleged that since the city’s water treatment plant was completed in 2020 it has had “repeated operational failures,” most notably fracturing of the internal plumbing of its six fiberglass vertical pressure filters.

Stantec was the main engineer on the project, while Fluidra manufactured and supplied the filters. The city’s lawsuit claims that Stantec wrote the specifications for the filters so that only Fluidra was able to supply them. It also alleges that Stantec breached the standard of care written into its contract with the city, by specifying filters that were inadequate to handle the flows and pressures of the plant, and by designing the plant in a way that increased the likelihood of “hydraulic transients,” which are water surges caused by a change in fluid velocity.

The city accuses Fluidra of having knowingly supplied filters that were not fit for the job they would have to do.

Shortly after the city filed its complaint in county court, Stantec and Fluidra filed notice that they were removing the litigation to federal court in Columbus, based on the fact that the parties are from different states and countries, and on the amount of money that is potentially at issue.

On Friday, Stantec filed an answer to the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division. In it, the company denies the suit’s key allegations, including the claims that it wrote the filter specs so only Fluidra could fill them, and that it breached the standard of care in its contract with the city.

Stantec has also, however, filed a counterclaim against Fluidra, in which it essentially says that while Stantic is not at fault, if it’s found to be by the court, it is Fluidra that should have to pay for any damages.

“If it is determined that (Logan) is entitled to recover damages from Stantec, any conduct of Stantec was passive and secondary, and the conduct of Fluidra was active and primary,” the document asserts. “Although Stantec denies any and all allegations that it is liable for any damages claimed by plaintiff in the complaint, should it be found liable for such damages, Stantec is entitled to be indemnified by Fluidra for all damages that Stantec may be obligated to pay to plaintiff.”

Stantec has also filed a third-party complaint against AECOM Global II, LLC, which it describes as a Canadian company that took over another firm, which had signed a subcontractor agreement to provide engineering services on the Logan water plant project.

Part of that agreement, the complaint says, is that the subcontractor would be joined as a party if the city sued Stantec. As successor to the subcontractor firm, AECOM is now bound by the agreement, according to Stantec.

Meanwhile, Fluidra’s attorneys have not been idle. On Friday the company filed a motion to dismiss the two counts against it in the city’s lawsuit, both based on alleged breach of warranty.

Fluidra maintains that there is absolutely no basis for the claims, because Fluidra never had any direct contractual agreement with Logan — it simply supplied filters to Stantec, which were based on the specs Stantec had provided, and which Stantec then used in the water plant.

“In other words,” the motion suggests sardonically, “Logan is suing Fluidra (a manufacturer that Logan has no contractual relationship with) for supplying allegedly defective goods (which Logan did not purchase) in response to specifications provided by an entirely separate entity.”

Email at jphillips@logandaily.com