BATON ROUGE – Sun Industries LLC based in West Baton Rouge Parish was named in a federal lawsuit recently filed by a bonding company accusing Sun Industries of breach of contract involving a Louisiana Department of Transportation intersection improvement project in Ascension Parish.
Merchants Bonding filed the suit June 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District Court of Louisiana that claims Sun Industries, formerly Sun Electrical & Instrumentation LLC,, breached an indemnity agreement signed by the parties in 2008.
Merchants' suit names Sun Industries, Todd Berthelot, Heidi Berthelot, Riley Berthelot, Suzanne Berthelot, Toby Berthelot, Jennifer Berthelot and Berthelot Investment LLC. The complaint seeks "its right to indemnity under a general application and agreement of indemnity (indemnity agreement) executed by the indemnitors."
In 2012, Sun was hired by Command Construction Industries LLC as a subcontractor to provide “certain traffic signalization labor and materials” for a project in Ascension Parish, the complaint said.
The lawsuit said Merchants relied on their indemnity agreement with Sun when it issued a payment and performance bond for $1,001,648.76.
In March 2014, Trafficware Group Inc., a subcontractor and supplier to Sun Industries, notified Merchants that Sun had not paid for services or supplies and issued a claim against the payment bond. The complaint said Command notified Merchants in April 2014 that Sun had breached the contract by “failing and refusing to supply sufficient labor, materials, and equipment to the project, failing to adhere to the project schedule, causing delay to the project, reportedly failing to pay its subcontractors, failing to furnish sufficient information requested by Command and abandoning the project." Command asked for Merchants “to redress Sun Electrical's default.”
The claims state that despite requests to pay Merchants, Sun has failed to pay Merchants. Merchants said it continues to incur costs for retaining legal counsel, court costs and other fees, and has only been reimbursed $20,000, resulting in a “net loss of $135,407.48.”