I-Team: Construction company sues state
NBC 10
The Shire construction company is accusing Rhode Island of approving faulty design work on bridge projects and is suing the state for $15 million.
The Shire construction company claims the state is out for revenge. The company is suing the state for $15 million.
Shire claims poor design work, approved by the state, led to costly delays in bridge construction.
The three-year delay in completion of the Barrington Bridge cost taxpayers nearly $12 million in overruns. There are similar problems with the Point Street Bridge project in Providence.
In both cases, the state ended up paying the Shire construction company about $10 million because the state approved what turned out to be faulty design work on the bridges. The design work was done by subcontractors hired by the state.
“Since the time that Shire pursued its claims in regards to the Barrington Bridge and Point Street Bridge, which resulted in substantial multimillion-dollar payments to Shire, the Department of Transportation and the other defendants have done everything they could to put Shire out of business,“ said Mike Kelly, a lawyer for Shire.
Shire says the Carcieri administration and certain former and current employees of the DOT are punishing Shire for proving that there was faulty design work and that they are preventing Shire from bidding on new work.
“Retribution. Revenge. It’s interesting to note DOT, after paying millions in change orders as a result of errors in design engineering that they hired, has not pursued any of these design firms seeking compensation for design errors,“ Kelly said.
Amy Kempe, a Carcieri spokeswoman, responded.
“We believe this lawsuit is entirely without merit and the allegations against current and former State officials are outrageous,“ Kempe said. “The State will present its case in due course through the judicial process.“
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
My company was the demolition contractor that shire had hired to demolish the point street bridge and to date shire has not paid us for that contract that we completed with out any problems. There is an amount of $132,000 due and this is has had a great impact on my business seeing that we are a smaller business. Why would the State have paid Shire if Shire did not pay there sublets. Does anypne really care about the the smaller contractors and teh family run business. I would like for evryone to hear my story and I would love for the State to help my company get what it is owed, for taking that bridge down. 132,000 is a good amount of money, it would keep a smaller business running for awhile. My name is David Santanelli and I can be reached @ 401-419-0127
The state can’t loose. The judges are appointed. Guess who has the upper hand.
There is and should be a lot of anger toward Shire for those, like me, that live in Barrington. This bridge has been an enormous headache since the temporary bridges went up. Everyone whose ever built a house or worked with contractors understands that change orders happen. They also know that shoddy contractors make constructions projects a nightmare. It doesn’t take 10 years to build a small bridge. Siegmund engineering may have screwed up the design, and they should be held responsible for the screw up, but Shire’s lethargic, apathetic, “we don’t care about time lines because we are going to get paid anyway” attitude is horrendous. Shire has the “old school” RI mentality that the Carcieri administration is trying to get ride of. The I-way project started 12 years after the Barrington bridge project and it still looks like the I-way will be completed before our little bridge. Watch the Sakonnet River Bridge finish before the Barrington Bridge.
With a judge in someones pocket.
Advertisement