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Two ISDs Lose Faulty Stadium Turf Appeals
Rulings: The manufacturer of an artificial turf product that failed long before its warranty period expired isn’t liable for decisions made by two ISDs to replace their failed fields at the districts’ own expense.

The claims made in lawsuits that Pleasant Grove ISD and New Braunfels ISD separately filed against FieldTurf USA were nearly identical — that FieldTurf failed to honor the eight year “repair or replacement” warranty on the company’s “Duraspine” product, leaving them no choice but to replace the fields with another artificial turf product, at the districts’ own expense.

The fields began to noticeably deteriorate after only a few years. FieldTurf blamed the problem on the turf fibers that were manufactured by another company (TenCate) that was incorporated into the product that could not stand up to strong UV rays common in Texas. The districts claimed that FieldTurf knew about the problems before marketing the product to them.

Though the life of the fields was purported by FieldTurf to be 10 to 12 years and was warranted for eight years, the fields started degrading within only a few years. After several years of litigation, jury trials and trips back and forth to appellate courts, separate judicial decisions delivered over the summer resulted in:
  • The Texas Supreme Court’s June 17 announcement that it would not consider an appeal by New Braunfels ISD of a 2021 decision (No. 07-20-00308-CV) by a state appeals court to nullify a jury’s verdict that FieldTurf must pay $251,000 to the district (see also this related TEN article). The record reflects that NBISD elected to pay $378,000 of its own money to replace its field after concluding that work done under a separate $5,500 service contract it had purchased did not solve the problem.


    • A July 1 ruling (No. 06-19-00022-CV) by a Texarkana state appeals court dismissing all claims made by Pleasant Grove ISD against FieldTurf. A jury previously awarded the district $175,000 in actual damages. (PGISD appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.)

The common thread in the judicial decisions siding with FieldTurf in the two lawsuits is that the plain language of the repair or replace warranty did not provide relief for districts that elected to replace their fields instead of waiting to see how FieldTurf would resolve the problem under the warranted “repair or replace” terms.

FieldTurf has been the subject of numerous lawsuits in the U.S. and internationally over the failed fibers. In 2014, a lawsuit FieldTurf filed against TenCate ended in a settlement agreement for undisclosed terms.