The Connecticut Supreme Court recently ruled that the state can sue the contractors and designers who built the University of Connecticut Law School Library.
The library was built with an unstable, leaking granite façade, and the state spent more than $15 million to repair the problem. The state waited 12 years to sue over the defects, and the trial court judge ruled that they were bound by the statute of limitations and threw the case out.
The Supreme Court, however, found the state immune from the statute of limitations based on the 13th century English legal doctrine known as “nullum tempus occurrit regi” (“no times runs against the king”). They remanded the case back to the trial court, where the state can pursue its case against Lombardo Brothers and more than 2 dozen other architects, managers, construction companies, subcontractors, insurance companies, and suppliers.
Click here for the full opinion.
A few of us still look back fondly on the library renovation/reconstruction project associated with this case. If you too are nostalgic for a little construction dust or the sight of a few hardhats, then check out former Head of Reference Lee Sims’ article about the library construction project in the annual architecture issue of AALL Spectrum. Additional photos of the project that didn’t make it into the article can be found here.
