Louisiana-Pacific Sued Over Siding Apartment Owners Say Materials Failed After Only A Few Years

Two new multimillion-dollar lawsuits were filed against Louisiana-Pacific this week, charging the company knowingly sold defective siding that caused extensive damage to apartment complexes.

At least 14 suits have been filed against L-P over its Inner-Seal siding, most of them class actions from disgruntled homeowners and disenchanted stockholders. The siding was made at a plant near Coeur d’Alene for six years and is still made in the Midwest and in Canada.

One of the new suits was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle on behalf of Ellinwood Associates, a California limited partnership. The second suit was filed Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland on behalf of Andrews Management, an Oregon corporation.

The suits ask for $6.5 million in damages. They appear to be the largest single, non-class action suits filed against the Portland-based lumber and building materials producer.

Ellinwood Associates and Andrews Management bought apartment complexes sided with Louisiana-Pacific’s Inner-Seal Siding in Gresham, Ore., and Vancouver, Wash., said David Ashbaugh, of the Seattle construction law firm of Stanislaw Ashbaugh. “They concluded, incorrectly, that the siding would do what it was designed to do.”

According to Ashbaugh, Andrews purchased two apartment complexes: one in Vancouver, and another in Gresham, Ore. “Our first clue that something was seriously wrong came when the siding started to fall apart,” Ashbaugh said. The suit alleges that the siding failed to perform as warranted.

Ashbaugh added that Andrews also built a complex in Beaverton, Ore., using Inner-Seal and experienced similar problems. Ellinwood and Andrews both have properties in Portland and Vancouver.

In each case, the apartment owners will be forced to remove the defective Louisiana-Pacific siding and replace it with new siding. “The cost of replacing the siding, just the work alone, will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Ashbaugh said.

The siding is manufactured by taking strands of inexpensive wood products and mixing them together with resins. The mixture is then compressed and heated. The result was intended to be a weather-resistant siding that would be free from splitting, cracking or chipping for 25 years.

“Our client certainly didn’t get 25 years out of the product. In fact, it took less than five years for it to fail,” Ashbaugh noted.