The YogaPipe lawsuit ended in an October 10, 2023 summary judgment from the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, which held YogaPipe, Inc. liable for distributing defective pre-insulated HVAC piping and awarded roughly $570,000 to supplier Hercules Industries, Inc. and contractor Utah Mechanical Contractors, Inc. A year later, YogaPipe filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy as a no-asset case, leaving the judgment effectively uncollectable.1Wolters Kluwer. Hercules Industries, Inc. v. YogaPipe, Inc., Memorandum Decision and Order2Bankruptcy Observer. YogaPipe, Inc. Bankruptcy Case
What Was Wrong With the Piping
Starting around 2016, YogaPipe, a Rockland, Massachusetts distributor formerly known as E.S. Gallagher USA Ltd., sold pre-insulated refrigerant piping manufactured in Germany by WRW Westfälische Rohrwerke GmbH. The defect was in the aluminum weld seam. The seams were not welded properly, and the pipes split lengthwise along the weld line during normal operation.1Wolters Kluwer. Hercules Industries, Inc. v. YogaPipe, Inc., Memorandum Decision and Order
YogaPipe’s own CFO and corporate representative, Larry Biricz, testified that every pipe from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 production years was defective. By late 2019, YogaPipe had stopped buying from WRW because of “too many problems” and switched to a different German manufacturer, Hewing. By then the product was already installed in buildings around the country.1Wolters Kluwer. Hercules Industries, Inc. v. YogaPipe, Inc., Memorandum Decision and Order
The Salt Lake City Apartment Failure
In September 2019, Utah Mechanical Contractors bought WRW piping through Hercules Industries and installed it in the HVAC system of the Paxton Avenue Project, a new apartment complex in Salt Lake City. Once residents moved in, the pipes started bursting. The failure rate hit 20%.1Wolters Kluwer. Hercules Industries, Inc. v. YogaPipe, Inc., Memorandum Decision and Order
UMC decided the unfailed pipe was still too risky to leave in an occupied building and tore out the entire system rather than wait for more ruptures. It sent YogaPipe a warranty claim on October 1, 2020. The remediation came to about $570,000.1Wolters Kluwer. Hercules Industries, Inc. v. YogaPipe, Inc., Memorandum Decision and Order
The Ruling and the $570,000 Award
Hercules Industries sued YogaPipe in 2022 in the District of Utah for breach of implied warranty and indemnity, and UMC intervened as a plaintiff.3GovInfo. Hercules Industries v. Yogapipe, Case 2:22-cv-00027 Under Utah law, a breach of the implied warranty of merchantability functions as a strict products liability claim, and the plaintiffs argued the piping was unreasonably dangerous because of an admitted defect present when it left YogaPipe.
YogaPipe argued the plaintiffs had no expert to prove the defect, that UMC never tested all of the removed pipe, and that UMC had pressure-tested at 500 psi instead of the 600 psi specified in YogaPipe’s installation instructions. Judge Dale A. Kimball rejected each argument. On expert testimony, he pointed to Biricz’s own admission that the piping was defective. On the pressure test, he found nothing tying UMC’s lower test pressure to the failures.1Wolters Kluwer. Hercules Industries, Inc. v. YogaPipe, Inc., Memorandum Decision and Order
Summary judgment for both plaintiffs on all claims followed on October 10, 2023. Hercules received $318,849.68, the amount it had already paid UMC toward remediation; UMC received the remaining $251,150.32. No appeal to the Tenth Circuit appears in the docket.4CourtListener. Hercules Industries v. Yogapipe, Docket 2:22-cv-00027
Bankruptcy and What Creditors Can Expect
On October 21, 2024, roughly a year after the judgment, YogaPipe filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The petition listed assets of $100,001 to $1,000,000 against liabilities of $1,000,000 to $10,000,000, with between one and 49 creditors.2Bankruptcy Observer. YogaPipe, Inc. Bankruptcy Case The court designated it a “no asset” case, meaning there is effectively nothing available to distribute to creditors, including the Hercules and UMC judgment.5INFOruptcy. Bankruptcy Case YogaPipe, Inc.
The case was closed on May 10, 2025, then reopened on May 21, 2026, under Bankruptcy Judge Thomas M. Horan. The available records do not say why it was reopened.2Bankruptcy Observer. YogaPipe, Inc. Bankruptcy Case
Related Proceedings
Two other matters sit alongside the Utah case but are not part of it. A Chubb Ltd. unit sued YogaPipe in the District of Massachusetts in late 2021, alleging YogaPipe had misled it when applying for coverage and that the insurer therefore owed no defense in the product liability suits; the outcome is not established in the available records.6Law360. Chubb Unit Was Misled About YogaPipe Defects, Lawsuit Says And the German manufacturer, WRW, filed for insolvency in July 2020; YogaPipe and its Canadian affiliate ES Gallagher Sales Limited submitted claims in that proceeding, including an ES Gallagher petition estimated at roughly EUR 1,833,800 covering claims against both companies.1Wolters Kluwer. Hercules Industries, Inc. v. YogaPipe, Inc., Memorandum Decision and Order Neither proceeding changes the status of the Utah judgment or the Chapter 7 outcome for U.S. creditors.