A Pittsburgh general contractor is feuding with Travelers Casualty and Surety Co. of America over a Pittsburgh school conversion and a road contract in Ohio, blaming the surety, a school district and a subcontractor for its troubles on the projects.
Whether that’s true or the contractor is the cause of its own troubles remains for now obscured in the legal haze, only a small part of which is explained in Reginella Construction Co.’s July 26 complaint against Travelers in federal district court in Pittsburgh. It accuses Travelers of breach of fiduciary duty and interfering with a Reginella contract.
Travelers was Reginella’s surety from June 2009 through June 2011, the contractor says in its complaint.
The first job in question is Reginella’s contract in Pittsburgh to convert the Moon Area School District’s former high school into a middle school. A school district spokeswoman said she would not comment on the matter due to possible litigation.
From August 2010 through April 2012, Reginella worked on the $45-million school project without incident, the company claims, finishing 80% of the project. But by mid-June 2012, the school district had not paid the contractor for almost 60 days, Reginella claims. So the company terminated the contract on June 11, accusing the school district of breach of contract.
On June 25, the Moon Area School Board terminated Reginella.
Reginella's problems with the Ohio Turnpike Commission involve a Dec. 2010 contract worth $9.9 million for construction of service plazas at Mahoning Valley and Glacier Hills in Pittsburgh for the Ohio Turnpike Commission.