A Pennsylvania jury in January ordered two Pennsylvania-based companies to pay more than $40 million to two plaintiffs after a jury found them guilty of negligence in a storage facility fire. Nine other plaintiffs were also part of the suit but recently settled with the defendants .

The lawsuit against the two defendants, a storage facility and Grinnell Fire Protection Services, now known as SimplexGrinnell, is the result of a fire that occurred at the storage company and resulted in the loss of approximately $100 million worth of documents owned by the plaintiffs. A third company, SecurityLink from Ameritech, was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit but was found not liable by the jury before the trial began.

SecurityLink’s defense attorney and a foresenic alarm expert were able to prove to the jury through written contracts it has with its client, the storage company, that it was never contracted or paid to provide any type of repair, or any other service, to a fire sprinkler system installed at the facility by Grinnell.

SecurityLink’s defense argued its case by presenting witnesses and documents that showed the company was not guilty of negligence because it was never under contract to work on or service the fire sprinkler system. The evidence also proved that both the storage company and Grinnell were liable because they did not uphold their duty and responsibility to properly design and connect the sprinkler system, despite them knowing the system’s condition.

Defendants Point Fingers, Dispute on Duty, Responsibility

The fire broke out at the storage company on May 5, 1997 and ravaged its main building, and damaged its two new building additions. Thousands of stored boxes containing documents, records and other property owned by the plaintiffs were also destroyed.

Months before this incident, Grinnell had been contracted by the storage company to design and install a fire sprinkler system for the two building additions.

According to court documents, Grinnell did not connect the sprinklers to the fire alarm system after the installation. It assumed that it was SecurityLink’s duty and responsibility to finalize the installation by connecting the fire sprinkler system to the fire alarm system. At the same time, the storage company knew about the disconnected sprinkler system and was advised to fix it. But the company failed to contact Grinnell to get the system up and running.

In the end, neither the storage company nor Grinnell made any attempt to fix the sprinkler system and connect it to the fire alarm system.

Michael Revness of Kurtz & Reveness in Wayne, Pa., the attorney who represented SecurityLink in the case, was able to argue SecurityLink’s noninvolvement in this case by highlighting some critical dates that indicated it was the storage company’s duty to contact Grinnell; and, it was Grinnell’s duty and responsibility to repair and finalize connecting the sprinkler system to the fire alarm system.

Contracts Clear, Settle the Duty Debate

Revness says SecurityLink had four contracts with the storage company, but they all were limited and clearly stated SecurityLink’s duties and responsibilities. Grinnell’s contract with the storage company, awarded in August 1996, never named SecurityLink as a subcontractor or as any type of service provider in connection with the design and installation of the fire sprinkler system for the two building additions.

The alarm devices that SecurityLink was in charge of servicing were those that were part of the fire alarm system it had installed in the main building (some motion detectors; door contacts; the storage company’s central fire alarm control panel; smoke detectors; and a card access system) – not alarm devices that were associated with the Grinnell-installed fire sprinkler system in the new additions.

Yet the storage company argued that an October 1996 letter it received from SecurityLink had confused the company on the status of the fire sprinkler system. Revness says the letter notified the storage company of the completion of the fire sprinkler system in the main building. It gave no reference to the sprinkler system in the two new building additions.

Revness says the letter was sent to the storage company around the same time it was about to build the two building additions to ensure that all other security equipment was in place and functioning properly. A document defending SecurityLink states, “We don’t even believe the shell for 8.2 [one of the building additions] was started” during this time. “For 8.1 [the other building addition], construction was beginning; it wasn’t substantially complete.”

Alarm Company’s Service Call Was Not for Sprinkler Repair

The plaintiffs’ claim and theory that SecurityLink was liable and negligent in this case actually derives from a service call the security company made in March 1997. The storage company contacted SecurityLink to check its main building’s fire alarm because employees there could not reset the system. Coincidentally, it was also on that day that a Grinnell representative was on site testing the sprinkler system in the two building additions.

During the service call, SecurityLink’s technician entered an enclosed room where sprinkler risers for all of the facilities were located to troubleshoot the problem. He discovered a defective pressure switch on the riser servicing the fire sprinkler system for the main building, which was installed by Grinnell. The technician told storage company officials about the switch and advised them to contact Grinnell since SecurityLink did not perform that service and was not under contract to do so.

The technician did not notice during this time that the sprinklers for the two building additions were turned off, and that the tamper and pressure switches for the sprinkler system were not connected to the fire alarm system.

This is where the plaintiffs speculated that, had the technician noticed the status of the sprinkler system, the alarm switches would have “miraculously” been tied in and the sprinkler system for both additions would have activated on the day of the fire, as stated in a court document.

Revness argued that the legal fault with this theory is two-fold: one of duty and one of causation.

Despite Dealer’s Noninvolvement, Design Error Is Questioned

Revness states that, with the issue of duty, SecurityLink’s contracts with the storage company never stated that it was to sell, install or test the sprinkler system; Grinnell did. SecurityLink also did not sell, design or install the alarm devices for the risers servicing the sprinkler system, including the defective tamper and water flow switches that were disconnected; Grinnell did. The security company was not under contract to inspect the fire sprinkler system; that was Grinnell’s or the storage company’s duty and responsibility.

Revness adds that with the issue of causation, a report conducted by a forensic expert hired by one of the plaintiffs criticized SecurityLink’s technician for not noticing the problem with the fire sprinkler system. On the other hand, the same report, and all other expert reports produced by the plaintiffs, also concluded that even if the technician had noticed the problems, it would not have prevented the fire because the sprinkler system was defectively designed. The system would not have controlled the fire.

Jeffrey Zwirn, CPP and president of IDS Research & Development of Teaneck, N.J., who was hired by Revness as SecurityLink’s alarm expert, says there was no evidence from any state or local authority to indicate SecurityLink violated National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards, fire codes or statutes on the installation of any of the work it performed. From his research and investigation, Zwirn says all of the plaintiffs’ experts came to the opinion that the syst

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