A New Rochelle affordable housing management firm has been sued for $3.8 million for allegedly not paying for plumbing services at New York City Housing Authority buildings.
Mac Felder Inc. accused Cornell Pace Inc. and its parent company, The PACT Renaissance Collaborative (PRC), of unjust enrichment, in a complaint filed on Aug. 28 in Westchester Supreme Court.
“The defendants were happy to obtain a huge amount of services,” the complaint states, “but they simply don’t want to pay.”
Felder is a plumbing company in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan. It was purchased by Amy Breslaw around 2002 and set up as a union-affiliated, woman-owned contractor.
PRC is a Brooklyn consortium that develops and renovates affordable housing, according to its website. Cornell Pace, based in New Rochelle, manages 6,000 apartments in New York City and in Westchester, Rockland, Dutchess and Nassau counties.
Last year, Felder was hired to provide plumbing services at 36 buildings that PRC leases from NYCHA, the housing agency, and that Cornell manages.
Initially, the work was paid for on time, according to the complaint, but that changed this past January when the clients had personnel changes.
Felder claims that PRC and Cornell never raised questions about the quality of its work or its pricing. The plumbing company says it repeatedly asked for written work orders, but the clients refused, often claiming that the jobs were emergencies.
As of March, Felder had billed for $4,096,442 in services, according to an accounts receivable report included as an exhibit to the lawsuit, and had received $276,983, leaving $3,819,459 unpaid.
Now Felder is demanding the balance, on charges of breach of contract, unjust enrichment and breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing.
“We cannot comment at this time,” PRC official Kirk Goodrich said in an email.
