PHILADELPHIA – A residential housing development association has accused two Philadelphia contractors of contractually agreeing to perform a number of improvements at the plaintiff’s property and not following through on doing so.
705 Franklin Capital Associates, LP of Ardmore filed suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on Oct. 10 versus Ed Nitka, E. Nitka Contractors, LLC and Big Dawg’s Plumbing & Heating, Inc., all of Philadelphia.
Franklin entered into a contract with E. Nitka Contractors, whereby the latter agreed to install and complete all stormwater management tasks, among other things, at True North Townhomes (a residential development represented by the plaintiff), in exchange for payment, the suit says.
Franklin says it complied with the terms of the contract and paid E. Nitka Contractors a substantial amount of money for their services.
However, the plaintiff says E. Nitka Contractors “improperly assigned” some or all of the services required under the contract to fellow defendant Big Dawg’s and the defendants breached the contract failing to complete items on the work’s punch list – which led to the Philadelphia Water Department providing a report on June 13 detailing several incomplete projects which had been marked to be finished, according to the terms of the contract.
The suit says the defendants were made aware of the incomplete work and pledged to start it on July 19, but did not do so. On Aug. 18, plaintiff’s counsel sent an attorney letter to the defendants warning them of possible suit if the work was not completed by a final start date of Aug. 22.
But, the suit says the defendants failed to respond to the attorney letter by that final start date, or at all. A subsequent report conducted by the Philadelphia Water Department found that none of the deficiencies noted in the June 13 report had been cured.
For counts of fraud/misrepresentation, breach of contract, conversion, unjust enrichment, negligence and indemnification, the plaintiff is seeking damages, jointly and severally, for the return of payments rendered, for common law indemnification in an amount to be determined by the Court, plus consequential and incidental damages, interest, attorney’s fees, costs of suit, punitive damages and such other relief that this Court deems just and proper.
The plaintiff is represented by Matthew A. Green and Adam S. Goodman of Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel, in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas case 171001204
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nickpennrecord@gmail.com