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Trumbull commissioners file second lawsuit over Kinsman sewer project
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners filed additional legal action against Marucci & Gaffney Excavating of Youngstown regarding a $10.6 million sewer project in Kinsman.
This time the commissioners are accusing the company of submitting false videos and data to cover up sags in the sewer lines it installed.
The suit was filed Monday in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
The county, through Sanitary Engineer Randy Smith, used its own workers and later hired a separate company to produce videos of the inside of the sewer lines after county officials became suspicious of videos Marucci & Gaffney submitted.
The county’s videos and other data suggest that dozens of sections of sewer pipe may need to be replaced, the lawsuit says.
At this point, “it will be difficult, if not next to impossible, to correct the defective installation,” the filing says. The suit seeks monetary and punitive damages and payment of the county’s legal costs.
Atty. Peter Welin of Columbus, who represents Marucci & Gaffney, could not be reached to comment on the new lawsuit Monday, but he talked about the videos in a response filing in November related to the earlier suit.
The filing says the county’s videos used a “methodology that differs from the project specifications ... in an attempt to try to make it appear as though there was defective work installed by” Marucci & Gaffney.
The response also says the excavating company obtained videos from a county sewer installation in the Kermont Heights area of Hubbard Township and an earlier sewer line on state Route 193 in Vienna Township that “actually left sags in the line and dirt and debris in the line ... yet the county accepted the work on [those projects] and in fact commended the contractor for its good work.”
The commissioners in October terminated contracts with Marucci & Gaffney for the Kinsman project and a similar sewer project in Vienna Township and filed a $1.3 million breach-of-contract lawsuit in common pleas court against the company. It alleged the company did substandard work because the lines have “sags” instead of being level.
That case is pending before Judge W. Wyatt McKay.
In the new suit, assigned to Judge Peter Kontos, the county also alleges there are other problems with the Kinsman sewer lines relating to their slope.