by Judy Killen-Originally published in the Yellowstone County News print edition
WORDEN — The Huntley Project School District intends to file lawsuits against the architect and the contractor who created the faulty high school roof by the end of August.
Superintendent Wes Coy said he authorized attorney Lawrence R. Martin of the Billings law firm Felt, Martin, Frazier and Weldon to file two separate lawsuits in Yellowstone County District Court in Billings, one against JGA Architects and the other against Fisher Construction.
Martin specializes in school law.
Coy and school board trustees met with Martin for about 30 minutes in an executive session closed to the public on Monday night to discuss legal strategy, as allowed under the Montana Open Meetings Law.
The lawsuits are the latest in a long line of wrangling among the agencies after the high school was built in 2009 following a fire. The school district contended the roof was improperly designed and constructed, resulting in moisture building up between roof layers and leaks during rainstorms.
The roof was replaced this summer by Diamond Construction. The removal of the existing roof was recorded in exacting detail and the district received a “forensic report” from Donald D. Schellberg of Madsen, Kneppers and Associates of Bellevue, Washington, Coy said, detailing the problems.
At Monday’s meeting, Coy said the most recent rainstorm, after the new roof was recently finished, was the first where no leaks were detected inside the high school building since it was built.
Although Martin is authorized to file two lawsuits, it’s still possible the complaints could be settled out of court before then, Coy said Tuesday.
Madsen, Kneppers and Associates of Bellevue, Washington, is a firm of construction consultants and engineers who compiled a report of approximately 130 pages, including photos, of the roof’s removal and replacement, Martin said Monday, with the problems that were uncovered “documented piece by piece.”
“Frankly, he found more defects that he wasn’t even aware of at the time,” Martin said of Schellberg, “both design errors and construction errors.”
Before the roof was removed, Martin said, he and board member Clint Johannes attended a mediation session in May with representatives of the architect and construction firms. Mediation is required before a lawsuit is filed, Martin said.
“The timing of that was not very good,” Martin said, since there was no hard evidence of the roof’s problems at that time. At that point, the architect blamed the contractor, who blamed the architect, “the insurance companies get involved and nothing happens,” Martin said.
Fisher predicted “spotty problems with construction” because of a poor design, Martin said, not requiring fixing the whole roof.
But removing the roof, which began June 1, uncovered multiple design and construction errors, Schellberg said in his report.
“Our assessment of the shingled roof assemblies is that a combination of
design and installation deficiencies have caused the roof to fail,” wrote Schellberg in the report from MKA.
The demolition of the roof was performed by
Donahue Roofing, a subcontractor to Diamond Construction Inc. Diamond Construction was the contractor for the new roof, and has reported the roof is substantially complete, although a few punchlist items remain, Coy said.
