Dad and mom, college students and educators within the Forest Hills Native Colleges have been centered this yr on lawsuits filed over critical race theory and diversity.
Monetary challenges prompted district officers to contemplate consolidating Anderson and Turpin excessive faculties – an concept now on maintain as officers weigh placing a levy on the Could poll.
However an unrelated, big-money swimsuit filed towards Forest Hills 5 years in the past over a $23 million construction project at Anderson Excessive Faculty is heating up.
And it’s possible off many individuals’s radars, regardless of the influence it might have on the college district’s funds and the way particular conferences are carried out.
Listed here are 5 issues to know concerning the lawsuit:
What’s new within the case?
A Hamilton County Frequent Pleas Courtroom decide has scheduled a jury trial in July 2023 for the swimsuit introduced by Efficiency Building of North Bend, the overall contractor of the work at Anderson Excessive.
What is the beef?
Efficiency sued the Forest Hills Board of Training and others in 2019 after the college district fired it from a renovation and growth job at Anderson Excessive Faculty.
Forest Hills stated it let Efficiency go as a result of the district was sad with the standard and tempo of the corporate’s work.
Efficiency stated Forest Hills fired it to hide the truth that the district was accountable for delays and overspending.
Efficiency additionally stated Forest Hills didn’t need to pay the corporate what it was owed and that the district fired Efficiency after a sequence of faculty board conferences that violated Ohio’s Open Conferences Act.
All events to the swimsuit deny wrongdoing.
What’s at stake?
To place it plainly: tens of millions of {dollars}. Efficiency initially requested for $8 million in its lawsuit. It sought an extra unspecified amount of cash when it filed an amended swimsuit in 2020 with the Open Meetings allegations.
A yr later, presiding Choose Tom Heekin narrowed the variety of allegations Forest Hills will face at trial to breach of contract and violations of the Open Conferences Act.
Heekin tossed out different accusations within the lawsuit akin to and unjust enrichment, doubtlessly lessening Forest Hills’ monetary legal responsibility ought to it lose the swimsuit.
Nonetheless in play is a breach-of-contract declare Forest Hills filed towards Efficiency after the corporate sued the college board – regardless that the college district in the end rehired Efficiency to complete the work at Anderson Excessive.
The declare will likely be a part of subsequent yr’s trial.
Associated swimsuit settled
Forest Hills and its insurance coverage firm agreed in November 2021 to pay about $2.2 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a subcontractor that cleared and ready the development web site at Anderson Excessive Faculty.
J&D Rack Co. of Inexperienced Township had sued Forest Hills, Efficiency and others in Hamilton County Frequent Pleas Courtroom in 2018.
Forest Hills agreed to pay Rack $1.28 million.
The college district additionally agreed to pay Efficiency $969,678 so Efficiency might pay what it owed its subcontractors, materials suppliers and laborers for his or her work on the undertaking.
That included $39,557 owed Rack.
Forest Hills’ cost to Efficiency within the Rack case didn’t absolve the district of the claims it faces within the 2019 lawsuit filed by Efficiency and set for trial subsequent yr.
One other associated swimsuit settled
In July 2020, Hamilton County Choose Robert Ruehlman put a lawsuit filed in widespread pleas courtroom by one other subcontractor on the Anderson Excessive undertaking on maintain as a result of the case was in arbitration.
B&J Electrical Co. of Golf Manor sued Forest Hills, Efficiency and an insurance coverage firm earlier that yr for $117,500 in unpaid work.
In September, B&J Electrical filed a discover of dismissal in courtroom, saying the matter has been settled.
