Listen to this articleA law firm, headquartered in Mineola, recently prevailed in defending against a $22 million lawsuit in arbitration.
Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone’s Construction Department, led by Manny Frade, the practice chair, along with Adam Wald and Max Rayetsky defended against the claim. That claim was filed by a subcontractor in connection with the renovation of a subway station that had been destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.
In the suit, Meltzer Lippe represented the project’s general contractor, Judlau Contracting Inc., a construction firm and subsidiary of OHL North America, a construction and civil engineering firm.
The subcontractor, Five Star Electric Corp., had alleged that Judlau failed to advocate on behalf of the subcontractor’s claim for additional payment from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for tens of millions of dollars in damages that it had incurred because of MTA-caused delays and demands to accelerate the work so that the station could reopen by the 2018 anniversary of Sept. 11. As a result, according to the suit, the subcontractor sustained losses.
The arbitration panel, however, found that Judlau had properly passed the subcontractor’s claim through to the MTA. The panel also found that the subcontractor did not establish that Judlau was liable for any delays.
Still, the panel awarded the subcontractor $1.6 million that the MTA had previously agreed to pay. The panel also awarded some additional payments for excess “premium time” that the subcontractor claimed it incurred to meet the MTA’s accelerated schedule.