Update: Undergrounding Litigation Inches Ahead

Update, Dec. 22: A further case management conference has been scheduled for March 21, 2012, in Contra costa Superior Court.

The City of Piedmont's legal action against engineering and design firms involved in the Piedmont Hills undergrounding debacle is moving ahead, if slowly.

A case management conference is scheduled for Wednesday morning, Dec. 21, in Contra Costa Superior Court.

At issue in this particular aspect of the case is whether the firm Harris & Associates was acting as a consultant or, under contract, as the city engineer at the time of the utility undergrounding project.

While the residents of the undergrounding district had agreed to pay the $4.3 million estimated for the 2009 project, the city was left with more than $2 million in overruns after workers encountered bedrock early on in the construction.

In the latest action, attorneys for Harris & Associates contend that the firm was acting under its contract as city engineer and that the contract requires disputes to be resolved through binding arbitration.

You may read the Harris & Associates motion to compel arbitration on the City of Piedmont website here. Current information on the status of the litigation is available on the Contra Costa Superior Court website here.

For earlier Piedmont Patch coverage of the issue, visit our undergrounding page.