New Milford secures another victory in legal battle over cleanup of Century Brass property

“I’m really glad the decide ruled in our favor and I’m on the lookout forward to coming up on the last result right after a lot of, several decades of litigation,” he reported Friday.

Conventional Demolition’s legal professional, Raymond Garcia, from the New Haven-primarily based Garcia & Milas law organization, declined to comment on the result of the circumstance.

New Milford’s authorized struggle with Standard Demolition Solutions dates back again to January 2016, when the town filed a lawsuit against the demolition business.

The town claimed Typical Demolition breached a $2.7 million contract to demolish and remediate the 315,000-square-foot previous brass mill making, forcing the city to employ a substitute contractor at a better bid cost in get to satisfy a 2020 remediation deadline established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The city explained elimination of contaminated steel at the Scovill Avenue assets was section of the occupation for which Standard had been contracted, but the demolition enterprise disagreed and claimed the town was responsible for remediation.

In December 2019, a choose ruled in the town’s favor, ensuing in a judgment of just about $490,000 versus Conventional Demolition, as effectively as a rejection of an eight-rely counterclaim submitted by the demolition company.

When Standard Demolition later filed an appeal, the city cross-appealed the demo court’s award of damages, which Tower claimed ended up restricted to liquidated damages.

“We took the position that liquidated damages — a variety of damages for the price tag of hold off in the completion of the project — was not a good limitation on our damages,” Tower mentioned.

In addition to rejecting Standard’s charm, the Appellate Courtroom agreed that the demo courtroom need to have included other factors of damages in addition to those people currently awarded to the town.

In its ruling, the Appellate Court famous that the Standard Demolition contract contained “no language expressly stating that (liquidated) damages are the plaintiff’s special treatment for a breach of contract” and concluded that the language of the deal did not help the trial court’s summary “that liquidated damages ended up the plaintiff’s special remedy.”

“The Appellate Courtroom agreed that as the harmless celebration — the 1 who did not breach the contract — our damages should not be constrained only to liquidated damages,” Tower claimed. “I’m happy that the town was vindicated in its position.”

Even though the liquidated damages have been for the “cost of delay,” Tower claimed, “there are other forms of damages, such as the price to full the project” that the city will now request.

As a final result of the Appellate Court’s final decision, the case is getting remanded to the demo court for a minimal function listening to on the town’s non-hold off damages — the date of which has not yet been established.

Bass stated additional damages would have a optimistic effect on taxpayers.

“The city would recoup funds that could go towards various makes use of,” he explained. “They could go to offset funds advancements that we’d if not request funding for from taxpayers. It would be extremely valuable to us.”

The legal fight could not be more than nevertheless, but Tower mentioned he sees the recent Appellate Court ruling as “a gratifying and gratifying partial conclude to a very prolonged litigation process.”