Coin of the realm: Judge infers cooperation, conflict may be 2 sides of same coin

FORT COLLINS — Coin of the realm or not, a Larimer County District Court judge has ordered a Windsor company that acted spitefully to pay a mediated settlement with a check or money order, not three tons of coins. And it was also ordered to pay attorney fees on top of the settlement.

At issue was a court case between Fired Up Fabrication LLC and JMF Enterprises LLC. Fired Up is a Loveland company; JMF is Windsor-based. Both are steel fabricators.

JMF contracted with Fired Up to produce metal handrails and stairs. According to the initial lawsuit filed in 2022, JMF failed to provide the materials for the work, so Fired Up used its own materials. JMF installed the completed rails in Trinidad.

JMF, for its part, complained of poor quality.

Payment for what was due was at issue, and the companies during the initial trial agreed to mediation. 

JMF agreed to pay $23,500 to settle the dispute. The sum was to be paid within 30 days from the settlement date, which would have been Aug. 24, 2023.

On the night of Aug. 25, it attempted to make payment in loose coins of various denominations placed in a fabricated steel box. The coins, court proceedings showed, were delivered to JMF from a bank in orderly boxes, but they were dumped loosely into the steel box.

Fired Up contended that JMF’s payment was a “bad faith” compliance with the settlement agreement.
JMF said it had “no intention to harass plaintiff, waste time or frustrate the settlement.” 

On Oct. 19, Fired Up’s attorneys asked the judge for an order to enforce the settlement plus sanctions of paying for the additional attorney fees required, which were said to be $8,092.50. JMF did not appear at the court hearing.
Late Monday, Judge Joseph Findley said that although the settlement agreement didn’t specify how the payment should be made, the late payment, the photographs provided by the defendant showing employees dumping the coins out of orderly boxes into the steel container, and its communications with Fired Up shows that JMF “acted maliciously and in bad faith.”

“Bad faith may include conduct that is arbitrary, vexatious, abusive or stubbornly litigious,” the judge wrote. “The court also finds that the defendant’s conduct warrants the sanction of attorney fees because it constitutes a tactic aimed at frustrating and undermining the plaintiff’s ability to receive the full benefit of its bargain by making payment so cumbersome and costly as to reduce the net amount of the settlement.” 

He ordered JMF and its owner, John Frank, to comply with the spirit of the settlement agreement within 14 days in a manner acceptable to Fired Up, plus payment of attorney fees.

Frank did not respond to a request for comment about the decision. 

The case is Fired Up Fabrication LLC v. JMF Enterprises LLC and John Frank, case number 2022cv30389, filed in Larimer County District Court.

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