Top Quality Top Soil has filed a counterclaim against School District No.46 (SD46), alleging that loss or damage has been suffered due to breach of contract.
“In breach of the contract, the School Board has refused or failed to pay the contract price for the soil,” says the counterclaim, filed Nov. 29.
Top Quality is claiming $25,200 – the amount in the contract – or damages, interest and costs.
Both sides admit to have entered into a contract that would see Top Quality supply 50 truckloads of compost mixed with soil to be used on seven of the school district’s playing fields in 2018.
However in its response, Top Quality denied a series of claims made by SD46 in its lawsuit, filed earlier this month.
The school district alleged, among other things, that Top Quality informed the school district that the soil was suitable for use on the fields before supplying soil contaminated with “large shards of metal, glass fragments, pieces of hard plastic, ceramic fragments, sulphur pellets, nails and wood, along with plastic bags and other garbage,” which was spread over seven school fields. After it was discovered, the school district deemed the fields unsafe and closed them. SD46 claimed it took maintenance staff more than 1,500 hours to remove the contaminants.
None of the claims by SD46 or Top Quality Soil has been proven in court.
In its response, Top Quality alleges that the contractor supplied the school district with soil approximately two years ago, and that despite raising “similar complaints about plastic in the soil,” the school district “ultimately accepted that the soil was of satisfactory quality.”
Top Quality alleges that SD46 “knew and agreed” that the soil to be supplied under the 2018 contract “would be of similar quality” to the soil provided two years prior.
Top Quality acknowledges it refused to pay $148,351, which the school district demanded for loss and damage last January. Instead, the contractor is arguing it isn’t liable for “all costs and expenses associated with the remediation of the soil,” as claimed by SD46.
It argues that the school district hasn’t suffered any loss or damage and denies causing any, or that it breached any of the terms of the contract, or that “it made reckless or negligent misrepresentations” about the suitability of the soil.
