Richland County School District Two in the US is suing Geosurfaces Southeast and TCoolPT over breach of contract, negligence and fraud. The district claims that promises that the infill would cool down their synthetic turf field by up to 10 degrees Celsius have not been met.

According to the complaint, the northeast Richland District contracted Geosurfaces Southeast in February 2020 for a USD 3.7 million project that would see the installation of several synthetic turf fields.

The fields would use TCool infill, which, according to the defendant companies, would keep the fields up to 10 degrees Celsius cooler than standard infill, the complaint says. Using the infill “would save the district money because it wouldn’t need to install an irrigation system for the new turf fields,” the contractor claimed.

According to the lawsuit, the TCool product upgrade cost the district “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Nevertheless, the district concluded that the installed turf fields become extremely hot, which made them decide to have the infill tested by an independent testing organisation.

“This testing established that the TCool product, if actually installed, did not meet the requirements of the contract documents and did not comply with the representations and promises of the Defendants,” Richland Two’s complaint reads. “Instead, this testing proved that the TCool infill product, if installed, completely failed to keep the synthetic turf any cooler.”

Richland Two provided those testing results to the defendant companies, according to the complaint, who initially promised to resolve the alleged problems, but “instead have chosen to ignore the District’s multiple claims and requests that these deficiencies be corrected.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the district was told it actually does need to install an irrigation system for each of the four fields so they can be watered to maintain lower temperatures. Manually watering the fields has meant “significant additional costs” for Richland Two, according to the complaint.

The district came to the conclusion, according to their lawsuit, that either the TCool product was not actually installed on the fields, it was defective, or it “cannot meet the promised specifications.”

″[Richland Two] advised the Defendants that none of these conclusions is acceptable,” the complaint reads. “Nevertheless, Defendants failed to honor their warranty and other obligations and have done nothing to remedy this condition at these four facilities.”