An incredible legal saga is playing out in Springfield, Missouri, where a 3DCP company is being sued.
The parties involved are MudBots, a Utah-based manufacturer of robotic 3DCP equipment, and The Gathering Tree, a non-profit civic group that helps provide housing for the homeless.
The Gathering Tree signed a US$1.6M contract with MudBots to provide a set of 3DCP printers so that the group could print 24 homes in a development called “Eden Village III”. After delivery of the equipment, the group realized that the machines could not do the work, and then the conflicts began.
MudBots insisted that the group was not using the machines properly, while The Gathering Tree believed otherwise. In any event, the project stalled in 2024, and lawsuits began flying. The main lawsuit is still underway, but it has recently been relocated to courts in Utah.
While the court case proceeds, it’s interesting to look at the circumstances here, as there are so many lessons for others.
During the legal proceedings, it was revealed that The Gathering Tree had agreed to MudBots’ “standard terms”, which turned out to be a 55-page document with all sorts of unusual requirements for the buyer.
The Springfield Daily Citizen lists some of the conditions:
- “Sites and printers need to be guarded night and day. Buyer warrants that the printer will not be unattended at any time.”
- “Buyer will provide and require a print and finishing team to wear safety vests or shirts clearly representing MudBots’ logos when operating the printer.”
- “Buyer warrants that they will not perform work or move the printer outside the stated area without written approval of Seller.”
- “Buyer acknowledges that printers are equipped with GPS, and the Seller is able to track the location as a means to confirm compliance.”
- “Buyer acknowledges that the printer and accessories will not be operated without a certified pilot having been trained by the seller. Training for replacement pilots will be scheduled during new customer trainings in Utah. The cost for subsequent pilot training is $2,500.”
- “Buyer acknowledges that failed prints that become public will cause irrefutable harm to the seller and customers of the seller. The buyer agrees to take all necessary precautions to restrict and protect against public and/ or media disclosure of print failure. The buyer further agrees to damages in the amount of Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000) should any print failure or print of questionable quality become public.”
- “Buyer grants the seller full authority to determine, in the seller’s sole discretion, if a failure has occurred and whether to levy a fine.”
- “Buyer agrees that they will prevent ex-employees and/ or partners from working for other companies that use a competing printer system.”
Some of these seem a bit burdensome and strange: requiring logos on work attire? Paying a fine if failure is disclosed?
Boiling them all down, it seems we have an overly protective seller forcing a series of measures on their buyer. These are not conditions you’d see on a typical machine purchase.
So what’s going on here?
The seller, MudBots, is clearly very concerned about their reputation; otherwise, they would not have put in all the extra protective measures in their agreement.
It may be reasonable to have such fears because 3DCP is a new technology that is not well understood by the public. Hearing bad things about it could be catastrophic for sales. On the other hand, it may very well be that their equipment is deficient and they are attempting to hide that from the public. We just don’t know.
Such situations do occur when new technologies emerge: some eager entrepreneurs rush out products to “be first” before they are truly ready for public use. The technology might be ready for use with tweaks, but they aren’t there yet.
Meanwhile, buyers also have responsibilities in such situations. The Gathering Tree in this case clearly did not do its due diligence in looking at the terms of the agreement before signing off. When spending well over a million dollars, I would think that would be a mandatory step. This is something a lawyer could easily do, but evidently was not, or was ignored by The Gathering Tree management.
If I were the buyer and saw those terms, I would become extremely suspicious of the seller. The Gathering Tree didn’t see the terms and proceeded anyway.
This is the lesson of buying and selling new technologies: they may not always work because there is no history of success yet. Sellers try various means to overcome that gap, but buyers should be aware of the risks.
