New Milford v. Standard Demolition Services, Inc.

Citations

• 212 Conn. App. 30

Syllabus

The plaintiff town sought to recover damages from the defendant contractor for breach of contract. The plaintiff owned a vacant brass mill factory that was contaminated with, inter alia, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The plaintiff, on the advice of consultants, applied to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for permission to demol- ish and clean up the property and engage contractors to perform the work. The plaintiff issued a notice inviting prospective contractors to provide bids for the third phase of the project, which involved the demolition, abatement and remediation of the property. The notice indi- cated that the contractor would be allowed to keep the scrap value of any structural steel salvaged from the site. The plaintiff made all public information about the project available to prospective bidders, including a report from one of its consultants that referenced the presence of PCBs throughout the building. The plaintiff also provided a letter to all prospective bidders clarifying that the selected contractor would be responsible for the sampling and disposal of any PCB contaminated material. The defendant submitted the winning bid for the contract, in which it did not allocate any funds for the remediation or disposal of any contaminated structural steel on the site, as it believed that the steel was not contaminated and could be recycled without remediation. Once selected, the defendant executed a certification acknowledging that it had read and agreed to abide by all conditions set forth in the EPA's approval letter for the third phase of the project, which included attachments regarding the cleanup of PCB contaminated material and correspondence between the EPA and the plaintiff regarding the PCB contamination of various materials, including steel beams. The parties then entered into a contract for the phase three work, which expressly incorporated the EPA approval letter and established a 140 day deadline for the defendant to