Insurer refuses to cover $5 million Texas quarry wall that failed during construction

The mechanically stabilized earth wall at Vulcan's Cantrell Mountain Quarry was a design-build job worth about $2 million inside a quarry development of roughly $120 million, ENR reported from court records. It was meant to stand about 55 feet tall and 270 feet wide so haul trucks could dump rock into a primary crusher. Settlement showed up in late July 2024. On Aug. 5 a lower panel at the west end had pushed outward, and the wall was demolished in 2025.

Vulcan sued ABS, a Ridgeland, Mississippi, firm, in federal court in northern Alabama in July 2025. ABS blames the base Vulcan supplied: limestone rock asphalt, a local stone with bitumen in its pores, which the contractor says kept compressing and creeping under load until movement passed 11 inches. Vulcan's forensic expert, John T. Bryant, points first to the precast panels. The drawings centered them on a 2-foot concrete leveling pad, but construction photos show them set toward the front edge. By his math that lifted the average pressure on the foundation from 3.99 ksf to 8.33 ksf. He also cites lifts up to 11 inches thick where the subgrade design allowed 9, geogrid at the wrong elevations and 10 to 12 feet of weak soil left under parts of the wall. ABS answers with Federal Highway Administration guidance saying a leveling pad is not built to carry the wall.

EMC wrote ABS's commercial general liability policy and has paid for its defense so far while reserving the right to deny coverage. Its complaint says ABS chose to build on the material Vulcan provided, so the loss was no accidental "occurrence" under the policy. The insurer also cites exclusions for damage arising from the contractor's own work.

No engineering claim has been tested at trial yet. Discovery in Vulcan's case closes Dec. 11. Motions asking the judge to rule without a trial are due Jan. 15, and both sides are expected to be trial-ready by April 2027.