Judge Clears Up Bad Window Motions

WASHINGTON (CN) - A federal judge will not allow government payments and invoices as evidence in a trial over nearly $1 million worth of badly built windows installed at the Army's Fort McNair building project.

Window Specialists and Forney Enterprises sued each other in 2011 over which subcontractor is responsible for the deficient windows that required the general contractor to rip them all out and start over.

According to U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer's ruling, Forney contracted with Window Specialists for labor and materials for installation of windows on the project, but terminated the company's contract after the windows were found to be deficient.

Window Specialists claims Forney stiffed it for more than $936,000.

Both parties filed motions to exclude evidence from the trial, but the judge granted only Forney's motion to exclude general contractor IIU Consulting Institute's invoices to the government and the government's payments to IIU.

Collyer refused Window Specialists' motion to exclude the testimony of Forney's expert witness and Forney's motion to exclude evidence regarding IIU's demolition work in preparing the window openings.

"Window Specialists has not articulated any theory that would lead the Court to conclude that IIU's invoices to the Government and the Government's payments to IIU are relevant to this case," the judge concluded.

A pretrial conference on the matter is scheduled for June 23, and the trial is set for July.

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