Construction contractor settles suit against state

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A Wisconsin contractor has decided to settle a lawsuit alleging that she was out $217,499 after being forced to install a certain type of nurse-call system at a Chippewa Falls veterans home.

The state’s court system shows that the lawyer representing J&L Steel and Electrical Services in the suit told Dane County court officials on Friday that the case had been settled. Jason Tarasek, the lawyer, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Neither could LouAnne Berg, president and chief executive at J&L Steel. Berg told The Daily Reporter’s sister newspaper, Minnesota Finance & Commerce, earlier this week that she had shut down her company’s steel operations following complications during its work as a subcontractor on the St. Croix River Crossing bridge project.

She also said that her company had sold its electrical operation, as well as its headquarters building in Hudson, to pay off debts stemming from the St. Croix project.

J&L Steel sued the state in May 2014 over a contract it had won roughly three years before to install a nurse-call system in a 72-bed state veterans home being built in Chippewa Falls. The plans had called for the use of a certain type of equipment – “a Rauland Responder 4000 or approved equal system.”

J&L officials took the phrase “or approved equal” to mean that they could install a rival product made by Jeron Electronic Systems, of Chicago. The state disagreed but did not make its position known until months after J&L had won the bid with the help of the cheaper Jeron product.

J&L maintained that the replacement at the late date cost it $217,499.

The state contended, according to court documents, that J&L was told in the project specs that if it proposed using an equivalent system, it needed to get those plans approved before the bids were due. The state also argued that the Jeron product counted as a “substitution” rather than an “equivalent” of the Rauland Responder 4000.

Besides the state, J&L Steel sued various private companies that worked on the project, including:

• Arnold & O’Sheridan Inc., an engineering that had once operated out of Madison
• Frisbie Architects Inc., which has been acquired by Ayres Associates
• Communications Mid-America Inc., a seller of Rauland products

Also named were three insurance companies: Beazley Group (USA), Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America, and XYZ Insurance Co. Berg said in July that J&L Steel had already reached a mediation agreement with Frisbie.

J&L Steel’s battle with the state has been long and convoluted.

Before Berg could even file her suit against the state, legal procedures had required her to first at least try to get the Wisconsin Senate and the Assembly to agree to pass legislation that would have awarded her company the $217,499 without the need to go to court. The Senate voted in favor of the bill on Jan. 14, 2014, but it never got a hearing or vote in the Assembly.

Berg estimated in July that her company had racked up $100,000 in legal fees from the fight. Follow @TDR_WLJDan