Oldcastle Precast, Inc. v. Concrete Accessories of Ga., Inc.
| Decision Date | 31 January 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 4:17-cv-00164-BLW |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Idaho |
| Parties | OLDCASTLE PRECAST, INC., Plaintiff, v. CONCRETE ACCESSORIES OF GEORGIA, INC., AREVA FEDERAL SERVICES LLC, and LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendants. AREVA FEDERAL SERVICES LLC, Counterclaimant/Crossclaimant, v. OLDCASTLE PRECAST, INC., CONCRETE ACCESSORIES OF GEORGIA, INC., Counterdefendants, & LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Crossclaim defendant. |
The Court has three ripe summary judgment motions before it: Crossclaim Defendant Liberty Mutual Insurance Company's Motion for Summary Judgment, Dkt. 63; Concrete Accessories of Georgia, Inc.'s (hereinafter, "CONAC") Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Dkt. 71; and, Oldcastle Precast, Inc.'s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Dkt. 72.
In addition, the Court has two ripe motions in limine: CONAC's Motion in Limine to exclude all or part of the testimony of Areva Federal Services LLC's expert, Henry Spieker, Dkt. 64; and CONAC's Motion in Limine to exclude all or part of the testimony of Oldcastle's expert, Ronald Mayville, Dkt. 67.
This case arises out of an accident that occurred during the construction of the Remote Handled Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory. The legal relationships between the various parties to this litigation are as follows:
On September 14, 2015, Oldcastle and Areva entered into the Oldcastle Subcontract. Dkt. 31 at ¶ 6. In exchange for payment, Oldcastle agreed to, among other things, fabricate and deliver precast concrete vaults to a site at the Idaho National Laboratory. Id. The vaults were intended for use at the Remote-Handled Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility located near Scoville, Idaho. Id.
Shortly after Oldcastle entered into the Oldcastle Subcontract with Areva, Oldcastle secured a Performance Bond from Liberty Mutual on September 29, 2015. See Dkt. 72-9. The following portions of the Performance Bond are relevant to the dispute:
In addition to securing the Performance Bond from Liberty Mutual, Oldcastle entered into the CONAC Agreement. In exchange for payment, CONAC agreed to supply certain metal anchors to be used as part of the assembly of the precast concrete vaults that Oldcastle was assembling for Areva. See Dkt. 21. For demonstrative purposes only, photos of the metal anchor supplied by CONAC and the final precast concrete vault follow as Figure 1 and Figure 2, respectively.
Image materials not available for display.
Fig. 1: Dkt. 70 at 7.
Image materials not available for display.
Fig. 2: Dkt. 70 at 7.
The exact contents of the CONAC Agreement are disputed. According to CONAC, the Agreement between CONAC and Oldcastle incorporated CONAC's "Terms and Conditions of Sale" which, again according to CONAC, are conspicuously posted on CONAC's website (Dkt. 74-1 at 2) and in CONAC's purchase catalog (Dkt. 74-1 at 1). The relevant portion of CONAC's "Terms and Conditions of Sale" reads as follows:
The Parties do not dispute that Michael Blackham, an engineer employed by Oldcastle who placed the order for the CONAC anchors, (1) had a copy of CONAC's catalog when he made the order and (2) accessed CONAC's website before ordering them. Dkt. 86 at 2. Oldcastle, however, argues that the "Terms and Conditions of Sale" "were [n]ever provided to Oldcastle" and were not conspicuously located on CONAC's website or in CONAC's magazine. Id. at 3. Mr. Blackham gave the following testimony during his deposition on this issue:
After construction on the Remote Handled Low-Level Waste Disposal Facility was underway, Areva sought an increase in contract compensation from Battelle. To this end, on August 9, 2016, Areva filed Baseline Change Request ("BCR") 193 (Dkt. 89-3 at8) seeking an increase of roughly $3.25 million in contract compensation as a result of "[c]hanges requested by ... [Battelle]." Id. BCR-193 did not include a request to alter the construction schedule. Id. ( ).
On August 11, 2016, two days after Areva submitted BCR 193, the accident at the center of this case occurred. As Oldcastle personnel raised one of the concrete vaults into the air for purposes of placing on a flatbed truck, CONAC's metal fastener failed. Due to the shift in weight, the other two anchors failed as well, and the concrete cask then fell approximately three feet to the ground.
One day after the accident, Battelle issued a Stop Work order "on all concrete vault component hoisting and rigging at the INL site." Dkt. 72-15 at 51. The letter accompanying the Stop Work order required Areva to provide Battelle with a "detailed ... [report] including root cause of the failure, the extent of conditions of parts fabricated by Oldcastle under the referenced subcontract, and any corrective action(s) required to mitigate recurrence." Id. Through a series of subsequent letters over the next four months, Battelle slowly rescinded parts of the Stop Work order. Id. at 55-59.
During the same period, Battelle also continued to consider Areva's request for an increase in contract compensation in BCR-193. Areva's request for fees was approved, though in an amount that was less than Areva sought, in Amendment 29. Dkt. 89-4 at 5. And, even though BCR-193 specifically stated that it Areva was not seeking an extension of the completion date, Amendment 29 extended the projects completion date to September 28, 2017. Id. According to the sworn statement of Joe Stringer, who, at the time of the...
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