A Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge has signed off on dismissing a contractor's $2.7 million mismanagement lawsuit against Ann Arbor Public Schools and Clark Construction, closing out a year-long legal fight over a renovation at Wines Elementary and Forsythe Middle School. The dismissal came with prejudice, meaning Core Mechanical cannot refile its claims, and no costs were awarded to any side.
Judge Carol Kuhnke signed the dismissal order on Oct. 8, according to MLive, which reports the dismissal stemmed from a stipulation agreed to by all three parties. It remains unclear whether Core Mechanical, Ann Arbor Public Schools and Clark Construction reached an out-of-court settlement, the outlet notes.
Core Mechanical, an Ottawa Lake-based HVAC contractor, had been hired in 2022 for an $11.4 million renovation project at the two Ann Arbor schools. The company first filed suit on Aug. 13, 2025, alleging that months-long work delays and what it called a severe mishandling of plans had cost it $2.7 million in productivity and other business losses.
What Core Mechanical Claimed
According to the lawsuit, reassignment and piecemeal work added 12,885 manhours to the job, with the bulk of the alleged damage — just over $2 million — tied to lost productivity. Core Mechanical also claimed $358,562.48 for costs of extended project delays and another $182,464.96 in additional project-management expenses, per the same account.
Core accused Ann Arbor Public Schools of breach of contract for allegedly allowing inefficient project conditions to worsen, as well as unjust enrichment over expenses it says it incurred as the project's heating and cooling provider. The company also sought to enforce an indemnity agreement against Clark Construction, the co-defendant that oversaw work in a school boiler room, arguing it was a third-party beneficiary entitled to protection from losses under that agreement.
Both Ann Arbor Public Schools and Clark Construction denied the allegations as untrue. Clark, for its part, sought to assign some blame to the project architect, alleging in 2025 that the architect's designs had contributed to the delays — though a third defendant was never added to the case, the station's report states.
Schools District Pushed Back on Documentation
Ann Arbor Public Schools claimed in March that Core Mechanical had failed to provide sufficient documentation supporting its claimed losses. The district also said Core Mechanical's claim of more than $2 million in lost productivity relied on a schedule the contractor itself was responsible for providing, and separately claimed Core Mechanical had agreed to cover certain other costs despite already being paid for overtime work.
The case moved through months of pretrial wrangling before reaching mediation. A court order lifted a deadline to complete mediation in June, and attorneys representing each party ultimately met for mediation in August, according to MLive's reporting, ahead of the October dismissal.
Scheduling Changes Along the Way
Court dates in the case shifted more than once. A January report indicated the docket had tentatively penciled in a settlement conference for Sept. 24, 2026, and a bench trial for Nov. 6, 2026. A later report described a different settlement conference, scheduled for Dec. 10, 2026, and a bench trial set for Feb. 5, 2027 — both of which the Washtenaw County Circuit Court canceled once the dismissal was approved.
Michigan law places limits on certain indemnity provisions in construction contracts. Under state statute, a provision purporting to indemnify a promisee against liability for damages arising from bodily injury or property damage caused by the promisee's own sole negligence is considered against public policy and is void and unenforceable in covered construction and real-property-improvement contracts. Whether that statute applied to the indemnity agreement at the center of the Core Mechanical dispute is not addressed in the available case reporting.
With the dismissal now final and no further court dates on the calendar, the yearlong dispute over the Wines Elementary and Forsythe Middle School renovation has concluded without a public accounting of who, if anyone, was found responsible for the delays or losses each side alleged.
