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Grinnell liens its customers, fellow contractors and
suppliers
Along with lawsuits, liens are an unnecessary evil in the
construction industry. Many Construction customers know how maddening it is
to try and obtain bank financing where there is some claim or lien against
your property. That is why it is important for construction customers to be
concerned about whether a contractor’s practices are likely to cause liens
to be filed against them. A lien against your property as a result of a
construction payment dispute, is as effective a claim against your equity as
a bank’s mortgage, according to the Engineering News-Record.
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| Defendent/
Property Owner |
Location |
Amount
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| La Quinta Inns, Inc. |
Denver County, CO |
$
23,691 |
| Capital Columbine
Office, Ltd. LLP |
Denver County, CO |
$
45,655 |
| Kaiser Electro
Optics |
San
Diego County, CA |
$
14,625 |
| Partners Steel |
San
Diego County, CA |
$
14,625 |
| CSM Corporation |
Arapahoe County, CO |
$
2,856 |
| Roundup Realty LLC |
Denver County, CO |
$
6,356 |
| COM Realty, Inc. |
Riverside County, CA |
$
10,022 |
| Ryan Automatic
Sprinkler Corporation |
Riverside County, CA |
$
26,254 |
| Delores & Paul Wynia |
Canyon County, ID |
$
15,936 |
| Dillingham
Construction |
Riverside, CA |
n/a |
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Total Dollar Amount of listed Liens: $ 160,020 |
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This list of liens is only a sampling of the liens
Grinnell has been involved with. |
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Another Grinnell sprinkler system floods a warehouse
Komar Company, Transportation Insurance Co. v. Grinnell Corporation |
| The Komar Company is
a magazine and book distributor with a warehouse at 3300 Clipper Mill Road
in Baltimore, Maryland. Grinnell had converted the Komar’s existing wet
sprinkler system into a dry sprinkler system. According to the complaint,
the Komar’s warehouse was anything but dry after the Grinnell-converted
system, "... discharged in the plaintiffs’ warehouse releasing water ...
damag[ing] the building and a large portion of the inventory stored in the
warehouse. [Grinnell] negligently converted/installed the dry sprinkler
system so that it discharged without cause," according to their court
complaint. Komar also hired an investigator, FTI
Corporation, to inspect the site of the sprinkler release. FTI reported that
it was likely that somehow water was allowed to enter the Grinnell-modified
system, and it must have frozen and forced a sprinkler head to fail,
allowing water to discharge. FTI also noted that "parts of the installation
did not conform to local or national standards for the installation of
commercial fire alarm equipment. These deficiencies included: the fire alarm
panel ... was not approved for commercial fire alarm systems, wiring... was
not in conformance with the National Electrical Code.... [Instalation did]
show a general pattern of no-conformance and shoddy installation.... The
sprinkler system was not provided with required supervisory alarms ... the
installation was deficient in a number of areas, indicating the general
disregard of requirements by the fire alarm installer.
(Case # 96051082/CL)
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Wells Fargo and Norwest Bank v. Grinnell Fire Protection
Systems, others |
| Grinnell Fire
Protection originally installed the fire sprinkler system at the Norwest
Bank Phase 4 project at 4455 West Arrows Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
On July 12, 1999, at 3:36 a.m., "several signals were received from the fire
alarm system" at the Norwest facility. One signal indicated a fire alarm at
Phillips LMS, an adjacent tenant of the building.
However, there was no fire at Phillips LMS. The false
alarm in the Norwest portion of the building caused the dry sprinkler system
to charge. According to the complaint, "a break in the piping... caus[ed]
water to flood Norwest’s offices.... The false alarm, improper installation
of the fire alarm and fire sprinkler systems, and the failure of the piping
system and resultant release of water caused physical damages to the
property... in an amount of over $360,000, and... business interruption
losses in excess of $150,000."
Damages may have been avoided but, "Due to a malfunction
in the fire protection system, the fire department was dispatched to the
[wrong] premises... causing a delay in the discovery of the break in the
sprinkler system piping at Norwest and allowing additional flooding damage
to occur." (Case #01 CV 2084)
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Grinnell dodges the truth in its bid on an Ohio school job |
| As part of its April
2002 bid on the fire protection work at the Granville, Ohio, renovation,
Grinnell/Simplex had to fill out a Contractor’s Qualification Statement. One
of the questions on the statement was, "Are there any judgements, claims
arbitration proceedings of suits pending or outstanding against your
organization or its officers?" Grinnell left the
answer to that question blank.
Of course, as of that date, there were literally hundreds
of serious civil cases pending against Grinnell and its corporate
organization of Tyco, including the Diversified Records warehouse case that
just went to a multi-million dollar judgement against Grinnell. Less than
two months later, criminal charges were filed against the Tyco/Grinnell CEO. |
   
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