Lawsuit says Texarkana contractor collected $1.4 million, left Little River County home unfinished
TEXARKANA, Ark. — A Miller County man is suing a Texarkana contractor and its manager, saying he paid nearly $1.4 million to remodel his family’s Little River County home and was left with a house that is still unfinished more than two years after work began.
John Scoggins filed the lawsuit Nov. 4 in Miller County Circuit Court against CK Southern Construction LLC and Collin Andrew Kuhn, whom the complaint identifies as the company’s manager and organizer. The case is 46CV-26-983.
The complaint seeks more than $1.5 million in damages. It alleges breach of contract, negligence, fraud, conversion and violations of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and asks in the alternative for $823,105.39 to be returned.
A $574,000 estimate
According to the complaint, Scoggins contacted the company in December 2023 about remodeling his family’s 8,500-square-foot home near Ashdown. In January 2024 the company gave him a proposal estimating the job at $574,274.50, priced as cost plus 12%. The proposal covered interior finishes, cabinetry, flooring, plumbing and other work.
The complaint says Kuhn told Scoggins he had built an 18-unit apartment complex and several large custom homes in the area and assured him the work could be done on time. It also quotes the company’s website, which calls CK Southern “the best construction company in Texarkana.”
The two sides never signed the written proposal, but work began in February 2024 under an oral agreement with an eight-month completion date, the complaint says.
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‘Unfinished and in disarray’
Scoggins says his payments reached $1,397,379.89, and that the company’s billing portal shows a disputed balance of another $184,910.56. The home “remains unfinished and in disarray,” the complaint says.
The family moved into a much smaller building on the property while the work was done. After the completion date passed “with no end in sight,” Scoggins bought another home for his family more than two years after the project started, according to the complaint.
The complaint alleges:
- Scope and price went up with no signed change orders.
- Some invoices contained duplicate, excessive or unsupported costs, including project-management charges of about $1,640 a time for what appeared to be material deliveries.
- Defective work had to be redone, and Scoggins was billed for the corrections.
- Appliances and fixtures Scoggins paid for remain in the company’s possession, undelivered and uninstalled.
Scoggins and his wife met with Kuhn every 30 to 60 days from 2024 through 2026 about delays and charges, and subcontractors repeatedly missed promised deadlines, the complaint says. When Scoggins “refused to continue to pour money into the project,” it says, Kuhn and the company “walked out and refused to complete the work already started.”
The complaint includes photographs of the house showing open walls and wiring, stripped cabinetry, unfinished floors covered in plastic and boxes of materials piled in a bathroom.
It also says the company is not in good standing with the state. It alleges that Kuhn let CK Southern’s status as an Arkansas limited liability company lapse during the project without telling Scoggins, and kept working on the job himself.
Scoggins is represented by C. David Glass of The Glass Firm. The online docket showed no response from the defendants as of Thursday. The allegations in a lawsuit are one side’s claims and have not been proven in court.