A lumber producer who claims a Prince George-based business is partly responsible for damaging equipment it had purchased from the owner of a Fort St. James sawmill may be going after the wrong people.
In a response to a civil claim Teal-Jones Group filed in March, the numbered company identified as doing business as Allen's Scrap and Salvage Ltd. filed a response on May 11 in which it not only issued a wholesale denial of responsibility but says that by the time the work was being carried out, Allen's was under different ownership.
Pursuant to a sale of the business to Central Salvage Ltd., it had not operated Allen's since September 2021, according to the response. According to Teal-Jones' claim, Allen's damaged the items in June 2022 while removing them as part of the dismantling the old Conifex sawmill.
Teal-Jones is also suing Hampton Lumber Mills-Canada Ltd. which bought the Fort St. James sawmill and the related timber rights from Conifex in 2019.
Teal-Jones had agreed to purchase the equipment from Hampton for $2.2 million and had intended to install the items in a sawmill it was building in Louisiana. But it was rendered useless and Teal-Jones to source other equipment for the mill, according to its claim.
In a separate response, also filed on May 11, Hampton Lumber Mills-Canada Ltd. is also denying responsibility, stating in part that Allen's was "fully responsible fo the the means, methods and processes of its work."
Based in Kamloops, Central Salvage Ltd. operates its Prince George scrap yard under the Allen's name, according to its website.
None of the allegations have been tested in court.
