ST LOUIS – A facilities management and maintenance company is suing a flooring company for damages related to repair work performed at a store in Fenton.
FrontStreet Facility Solutions filed a lawsuit against River City Flooring Inc. and its owner, Terry Chatelain on May 17 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Eastern Division. The lawsuit is related to flooring work River City completed under a vendor agreement with FrontStreet.
The underlying case involves a lawsuit Advance Stores Company filed against FrontStreet for alleged damages arising from flooring work performed by River City at its retail store in Fenton. The case is pending in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Roanoke Division. Advance alleges that the company performing the work was required to investigate the presence of asbestos and obtain an asbestos pre-construction inspection before beginning work.
Advance claims the inspection wasn’t formed. The complaint notes during the flooring work, “it was determined that certain mastic beneath the tiles being removed contained asbestos.” As a result, Advance reportedly had to close the Fenton store, destroy or abandon stock and inventory, and incur expenses to hire consultants, experts and contractors to perform remedial measures.”
Those costs along with expenses and fees totaled more than $1.2 million.
It it’s complaint, FrontStreet argues that River City breached its “duty of care and is liable for any damages” related to the flooring work. The complaint also argues that “River City is obligated to defend, indemnify and/or hold harmless FrontStreet in the Virginia lawsuit.
“River City has filed to defend FSFS in the Virginia suit,” the complaint said. “River City’s failure to defend, indemnify and/or hold harmless FSFS for the claims asserted by Advance in the Virginia suit is a deliberate and direct breach and violation of the Agreement.”