A St. 香港三级片 County jury awarded a local asphalt company $109 million last week after its supplier sold it the wrong kind of base rock, one that was lower quality than what was ordered.
Gleeson Asphalt Inc., a paving contractor based in Belleville, filed a lawsuit in 2019 against its supplier, Chicago-based Lafarge North America Inc.
Because of the wrong base rock, two parking lots paved by Gleeson Asphalt in 2018 had to be torn up and repaved. The lots, one for the Topgolf in Chesterfield and the other for the St. Charles County Emergency Operations Center, had developed ruts and had to be redone because the aggregate was not suitable for installing asphalt, according to a news release.
Base rock is typically laid before asphalt to help anchor it.
Gleeson claimed that it had incurred financial liabilities, became indebted, lost business opportunities and profits, and that its reputation had been damaged because Lafarge North America misrepresented the product it sold.
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Last week, the jury sat through a four-day trial and deliberated for two hours before unanimously deciding to award Gleeson Asphalt $942,936 in compensatory damages and $108.3 million in punitive damages.
鈥淭he quarry didn鈥檛 have the kind base rock our client ordered, and just gave them this inferior product instead, trying to pass it off as something else,鈥 Kevin Carnie Jr., lead attorney for Gleeson Asphalt Inc., said in a statement. 鈥淟aFarge represented that it met the specs Gleeson had ordered.鈥
The defense argued that the issue was due to a miscommunication, which Gleeson Asphalt鈥檚 attorneys called 鈥渙utrageous.鈥
鈥淲e gave the jury the exact amount our client lost in profits and the cost of redoing the parking lots, and they awarded what we were asking for to the penny,鈥 Carnie, of Simon Law, said. 鈥淚 think the jury sent a loud and clear message about what they thought of the defendant鈥檚 conduct.鈥
Mike Friedman, spokesperson for聽Lafarge North America's parent company,聽Holcim, said the company plans to聽鈥渧igorously defend聽against聽the ruling.鈥
Editor鈥檚 note: This story was updated Thursday at 11 a.m. to add comment from Lafarge North America Inc.
Storms rocked the St. 香港三级片 area with a tornado damaging neighborhoods from Clayton to north St. 香港三级片. View photos from the Post-Dispatch photographers during the week here. Video by Jenna Jones.
