A shingle maker and Missouri Republicans team up to leave consumers in the cold

TAMKO Building Products had a problem.

The Joplin, Missouri, company’s roofing shingles, according to consumers in multiple states, sometimes fell apart well short of their 30-year warranty. A Missouri man named Lee Hobbs bought TAMKO shingles in 2005; by 2013, they were warped and curling. Same with Jonesburg United Methodist Church: Rainwater was leaking onto its pews just six years after it roofed with TAMKO shingles, in 2007.

Both Hobbs and Jonesburg United Methodist Church filed warranty claims with TAMKO, seeking money back. Hobbs’ claim was denied. The church was offered only a partial replacement for its shingles. So they teamed up and, with others, filed a class-action lawsuit against TAMKO, alleging that the company had negligently sold defective products.

TAMKO responded by arguing that Hobbs and the church didn’t have a legal right to sue because, written on the packages of the shingles they’d bought, was a clause requiring warranty disputes to be settled in arbitration.

The Circuit Court in Jasper County didn’t buy that argument; it said Hobbs and the church’s class-action suit could move forward.

Read more: http://www.pitch.com/news/article/20851503/a-shingle-maker-and-missouri-republicans-team-up-to-leave-consumers-in-the-cold