Yesterday, the U.S. District of Maryland dismissed a more than $6 Million lawsuit filed over materials supplied for the first ever LEED certified Platinum building.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Smithgroup its architect, and Clark Construction its construction company together asserted breach of contract and negligence against Weyerhaeuser arising from construction of the LEED Platinum certified Phillip Merrill Environmental Center building on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Case 8:11-cv-00047-AW. Consistent with the owner’s mission to “Save the Bay” the project had “contemplated the use of recycled and environmentally friendly materials,” including certain wood columns and beams fabricated using wood waste materials. A significant portion of the building consisted of those glue laminated wood members. Per the project’s design some of these wood members were exposed to the elements.

Sometime after the building was completed in 2000, it rained and some of the “exposed wood members” got wet and swelled and shrinked resulting in “cracking at the joints.” In response to water leaks at some of the joints, in April 2001 the owner hired a forensic engineering expert, who among other matters concluded, “on this project, the use of [Parallam] as an exposed element on the building facade is cause for some concern in that, a) it includes inherent irregularities at the exposed wood surfaces that, although attractive in appearance, are inherently difficult to seal ..”

Some 10 years after the building was completed, in 2010, the owner filed suit against Weyerhaeuser, the supplier of the wood. Weyerhaeuser filed a counterclaim that one or more Plaintiffs had acted negligently in constructing and maintaining the building, selecting and approving materials including the PolyClear 2000 wood preservative, and “taking inadequate stock of the Center’s seaside location and its foreseeable impact on the Center’s structural integrity.”

After discovery, motions for summary judgment were filed. The gravamen of Weyerhaeuser’s motion was that the statute of limitations started to run on the Plaintiffs’ claims no later than May 2002, at which time they had received the engineering expert reports.

Under Maryland law, “a civil action at law shall be filed within three years from the date it accrues unless another provision of the Code provides a different period of time ..” Another provision applies the discovery rule that “the cause of action accrues when the claimant in fact knew or reasonably should have known of the wrong.”

On March 23, 2012, the federal court dismissed the case in favor of Weyerhaeuser holding “that Plaintiffs’ cause of action accrued no later than May 2002 and expired more than half a decade before they filed suit.”

This result may not be satisfying to those who wanted an adjudication on the underlying issues of unique recycled and environmentally friendly materials selection for the first LEED Platinum building and otherwise, but that Weyerhaeuser is not liable and that the claims lack viability is good for the building business including good for the green building business.