A Pennsylvania-based architecture firm has filed a civil lawsuit in the state’s Middle District Court against a former developer client for breach-of-contract and copyright infringement. Murray Associates Architects filed the suit against Pine Ridge Construction Management on March 28th, claiming that Pine Ridge has continued to use Murray’s design, drawings, and renderings for a proposed project after Murray was terminated from the project without payment and without a licensing agreement for Pine Ridge to continue using Murray’s work.

Events began in Spring 2020, when Murray was selected by Pine Ridge to serve as architects for the company’s bid to design and deliver the mixed-use Basin Street Development Project for Lycoming College at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, which would be housing retail, office, and residential uses. Murray delivered conceptual studies, graphics, and Revit/BIM drawings for Pine Ridge’s bid for the project, which was submitted to Lycoming College in June 2020.

Having been successfully selected for the project by the college, the suit claims that “Pine Ridge intended for, and directed Murray Associates to continue furnishing professional architectural services including, but not limited to, architectural programming, conceptual design, preliminary phase design, construction documents, construction bidding/negotiation, and construction administration.” From the summer of 2020 to the early fall of 2021, Murray subsequently delivered programming, conceptual design, and preliminary phase design services. Murray invoiced Pine Ridge for these services in August and September 2021.

The suit notes that no written agreement was signed between Murray and Pine Ridge for Murray’s services and that the team instead “engaged in an ordinary course of dealing between developer/construction manager and architect in such a fashion that is standard in the construction industry such that a mutual intent to contract was manifest.” In October 2021, Murray then presented Pine Ridge with a draft “Owner-Architect Agreement” detailing the terms of Murray’s role in writing, after Murray had already completed and invoiced its services up to and including conceptual design.

The suit claims that while negotiating the details of this agreement, Pine Ridge dismissed Murray from the project “without explanation or justification” on October 18th. To allow the project to proceed without their continued involvement, Murray presented Pine Ridge with a Release & License Agreement which would give Pine Ridge permission to “copy, modify, revise, edit and use” Murray’s work if outstanding invoices were fulfilled. The suit claims that Pine Ridge never responded to the licensing proposal, and never paid Murray the outstanding invoices on the project.

Despite a subsequent December 2021 warning by Murray to Pine Ridge that the architect was “the owner of intellectual property including the copyright to its Architectural Works and that Murray Associates has copyright registrations” for the project, the suit claims that Pine Ridge continues to use Murray’s work without license or permission, including removing Murray’s logo from their work, publishing the work on Pine Ridge’s website “as its own work,” and distributing the work to “a large number of developers, subcontractors, and most notably the public at large.”

“Simply stated, [Pine Ridge] have taken Murray Associates Architectural Works for the Project and represented them to be their own,” the suit concludes. “[Pine Ridge's] intentional, infringing conduct was undertaken to reap the creative benefit and value associated with the Architectural Works.”

The suit was filed in court on March 28th, 2022 with six counts including copyright, theft of services, breach of contract, and violation of the state’s Contractor and Subcontractor Payment Act.

The case comes one week after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a Florida entrepreneur who claimed that his First Amendment rights were violated when plans for his proposed mansion were rejected by officials in Palm Beach.