Modern Piping seeks damages from UI after settling children’s hospital dispute
Lang
5/18/19
The legal battle between the University of Iowa and Modern Piping isn’t over yet.
The Gazette reports the Cedar Rapids-based company has filed paperwork in Johnson County District Court seeking an additional $3.125 million from the university for what it claims is the time and money it spent fighting an injunction the school tried to have put in place to keep it from going to arbitration in the case.
The university has been entangled with the contractor over work done on the Stead Family Children’s Hospital and disputed the amount Modern Piping claimed they were owed.
Modern Piping has won repeated court orders and awards, with a judge upholding an arbitrator’s decision in August.
On Tuesday, a judge lifted the moratorium on Modern Piping’s right to seize UI assets to satisfy the debt and provided them a document that they could take to the Sheriff’s Office to be executed.
Wednesday afternoon, the school issued a statement saying that after consulting with the Attorney General’s Office, they paid the $13.6 million that remained due on the judgement, plus interest. The total amount paid by the UI came to $23.5 million. That includes $21.5 million for the initial judgement, plus $2 million in interest and other costs.
In the new filing, Modern Piping claims the university used a “frivolous legal argument” in trying to block arbitration in the case.