Legal woes pile up at The Leaf

The Assiniboine Park Conservancy has filed yet another lawsuit over the construction of The Leaf — piling onto existing litigation over the $130-million project.

The Leaf botanical garden opened in late 2022, two years after initially planned due in large part to problems with its translucent roof.

Most of the lawsuits filed by the conservancy and by contractors are related to the building’s roof and project construction overall. The parties have blamed each other for myriad issues.

At least seven lawsuits have been filed over the project, though some of the claims have been consolidated into one action.

The latest lawsuit, filed by the conservancy’s lawyers late last month in the Court of King’s Bench, accuses contractors of shoddy installation of two industrial dishwashers in the building’s banquet and restaurant spaces, causing flooding.

The suit names Bird Construction Group, which was the project manager and general contractor, and T&D Enterprises Ltd., which operates under the name Wescan, as defendants.

The two dishwashers, the lawsuit claims, were installed by either Bird or Wescan.

In November 2023, staff at the Leaf discovered possible water leaks, after noticing water damage on a wall and the smell of sewage in a washroom, the court papers say.

Wescan staff then looked for the leak, cutting out drywall and concrete in several locations to access the building’s crawlspace, the filing claims.

“Wescan discovered that the pipes became stiff and cracked resulting in sludge outside the pipe at the slab level and water in the crawlspace, which caused extensive water damage to the Leaf,” the lawsuit says.

Assiniboine Park Conservancy later had a representative from the dishwasher’s manufacturer conduct an inspection of the installation jobs to determine what caused the pipe failures.

In the banquet hall, the manufacturer found that a tempering kit — a temperature regulator meant to ensure the wastewater leaving the unit would not be so hot as to damage the pipes — was improperly installed in the dishwasher, the court filing claims. The hot wastewater had deformed a pipe and caused leaks.

Further, the manufacturer found, the tempering kit for the restaurant space’s dishwasher hadn’t been installed at all, causing the pipe to become stiff from the heat and leak, the conservancy alleges.

Wescan then replaced plastic pipes from each dishwasher with copper pipes.

The conservancy claims the flood was caused by the contractors’ alleged failures in installing the kits and for failing to use copper pipes rather than plastic.

It accuses the defendants of negligence and breach of contract, among other claims.

The conservancy claims it incurred losses, damages and expenses in investigating the leaks, repairing the damage, cleaning and restoring the facility.

Further, it says it incurred engineering and consulting costs during the repairs, lost income and the ability to use the Leaf for a time, and that its insurance costs went up.

No specific dollar figure is included in the court filing for the damages sought.

Neither of the defendants have responded to the new litigation with statements of defence. Bird is involved as a plaintiff and defendant in a number of the earlier claims and has denied wrongdoing.

Construction on the Leaf — as a replacement of the old conservatory at Assiniboine Park — began in 2017-18 and was suspended amid problems in June 2019. Remedial work didn’t start until Aug. 31, 2020. Throughout construction, the cost ballooned from the original $75 million price tag.

The building features four biomes that showcase plants from around the world, including a butterfly biome in which exotic butterflies flit around visitors.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca