City files lawsuit for crumbling River Trail at Duck Creek
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After 385 days of closure following "catastrophic failure," a lawsuit is now public seeking damages for the crumbling River Trail at Duck Creek in Marietta.
The City of Marietta has filed a lawsuit for damages against the engineers who worked to design the project.
If granted cumulative compensation on all counts, the city could see payment of $200,000 from the companies in total.
But first, the city must prove its case, that the four firms failed to properly assess the physical parameters the retaining wall and trail were built upon; failing to reach the "point of refusal" in initial testing of the site and resulting in the I-beams in the wall being insecure without latch into bedrock.
"And the same civil rules apply," explained City Law Director Paul Bertram. "They were sent the complaint via certified mail and will have up to 28 days to respond. This is how the case begins."
The litigation makes no mention of a plea to the court to force the firms to provide a safe alternative route for pedestrians and cyclists that have been relegated back to Ohio 7 to walk along the highway in the berm to reach laundry and grocery facilities (see the May 25, edition of the Times).
The civil action is at present under the oversight of Washington County Common Pleas Judge Mark Kerenyi who was assigned the case Thursday before it was docketed Friday.
The city, appearing as a plaintiff, alleges in the case that the four firms named as defendants not only committed negligence but also breached their contracts with the city resulting in "catastrophic failure" of the trail and destroying a sewer main that ran beneath the trail.
The firms sued include Professional Service Industries Inc.; Intertek PSI; Jobes, Henderson and Associates Inc; and Hull and Associates LLC.
Intertek PSI acquired Professional Service Industries prior to the suit and likewise, Hull and Associates acquired Jobes prior to completion of the 0.85-mile section of the trail and bridge.
The city began work with Jobes in 2008 with a contract for initial development work on the design of the project, including two retaining walls at Duck Creek and at the Ohio River.
But the math, the city alleges, was off.
And without correct math, design work produced from that equation was not sufficient.
'PSI and/or Intertek knew that the city, the project contractors and Jobes and/or Hull would rely on the information, soil parameters and recommendations provided in the Structure Foundation Report in planning, designing and constructing the project," the city alleges in the complaint first against the first firm. "In the Structure Foundation Exploration Report, PSI and/or Intertek also failed to provide among other things, the following: A recommendation to perform p-y analysis for the Duck Creek Wall and the Ohio River Wall, which was required due to wall type; soil strength parameters for the p-y analysis; a recommendation for a permanent wall design methodology and instead recommended a temporary wall design methodology that was inappropriate for the permanent Duck Creek Wall and Ohio River Wall; and an appropriate soil shear strength recommendation. By failing to provide the appropriate analysis recommendations and soil parameters … PSI and/or Intertek materially breached the (contract with the city) and fell below the professional standard of care that (the company) had a duty to provide to the city."
The lawsuit alleges that though Hull/Jobes was given faulty recommendations and numbers from the assessment by Intertek/PSI, it cannot be held blameless either.
It accuses Hull/Jobes of additionally failing "to consider the effect of the sudden drawdown of floodwaters on the stability of the Duck Creek Wall and the Ohio River Wall."
The city assigns blame to the second company (Hull/Jobes) of the sewer collapse beneath the trail and charges the court with determining whether all four firms can be considered in breach of their contracts with the city and found negligent in their duties.
Janelle Patterson may be reached a0t
jpatterson@mariettatimes.com.