Three major contractors — Skanska USA Civil Southeast, Granite Construction Company, and The Lane Construction Corporation — formed a joint venture called SGL to expand Interstate 4 between Tampa and Daytona Beach, initially projecting $255 million in profit. As Circuit Judge Tjoflat wrote for the unanimous panel, "hurricanes, inflation, a labor shortage, and a series of unfortunate events turned profit-seeking into loss-mitigation," leaving SGL more than half a billion dollars in the red.
When losses mounted, Lane proposed abandoning the project. Lane's lawyers said they had "concocted a legal theory" to abandon the project without liability, alternatively suggesting SGL threaten termination as a negotiation tactic. Skanska found the proposal "too risky," noting that "Lane's proposal rested on a series of tenuous legal assumptions, and if even one failed, SGL could face uncapped damages."
The conflict centered on overlapping ownership structures. Skanska's parent company held a stake in I4MP, the private entity financing the construction in exchange for milestone payments and a maintenance agreement worth $75 million annually. Lane "surmised that Skanska's parent company stood to lose more from jeopardizing those payments than it would gain from stemming SGL's losses."
U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. presided over a ten-day bench trial in October 2023 and held that Skanska "acted in the best interest of both Lane and SGL by rejecting the Termination Request." The court ordered Lane to pay $49 million to Skanska and $30 million to Granite, representing their excess contributions after Lane "began refusing mandatory capital calls."
On appeal, Lane challenged both the contract findings and the fiduciary duty analysis. Judge Tjoflat found the arguments unpersuasive, noting that some were "unsupportable." The court emphasized that Lane's breach was material and intentional: "Lane admits it stopped paying" and had "no interest in funding SGL while awaiting the District Court's disposition."