A fourth defendant has been added to a civil lawsuit brought against the building of the Gotion factory in Manteno.

That information came to light during a court date Wednesday.

The organization Concerned Citizens of Manteno and Manteno resident Brian Kovaka are suing the Village of Manteno, 333 South Spruce LCC; Gotion Inc, a California Corporation; and now Gotion Illinois New Energy Inc.

Gotion Illinois New Energy is the plant that is now operating in a former warehouse.

The lawsuit was originally filed in December 2023 regarding Manteno’s rezoning of the then-proposed lithium battery factory at the former Kmart distribution center at 333 S. Spruce St. in Manteno for Gotion, a Chinese manufacturer.

“Gotion Illinois [New Energy], was recently added to the case as our third Gotion defendant,” attorney Daria Porta told Kankakee County Circuit Judge Lindsay Parkhurst.

“We have answered written discovery, initial objections for Gotion Illinois. We are working on voluminous document productions.

“We’ve produced over 18,000 pages of documents so far and will probably be producing maybe twice as much as that over the next month as an estimate. So we are rolling through as much discovery as we possibly can as quickly as we can.”

With the plant also gearing up to begin the second phase of the project within the next nine to 10 months, Porta said they will be providing numerous documents on a daily basis.

“Gotion Illinois is the entity that operates the facility, so at our request Plaintiffs added that entity to the case. This was expected and initiated by our team with the agreement of the Plaintiff,” Andrew Wheeler, Head of Government and Public Relations for Gotion Illinois, said in an email reply for comment.

The attorney representing Concerned Citizens of Manteno and Kovaka, Robby Dube, said the addition came up during the discovery phase of the lawsuit.

Kovaka said they originally sued the village and a holding company, Gotion Inc.

“Our understanding at the time was that the holding company owned the land, Gotion, Inc. was the tenant who would be running the plant, and then obviously the village,” Dube said.

“We then learned that 333 South Spruce, LLC, which was a different holding company, had actually purchased the land and was the property owner. So we amended the complaint to add them in.

“What happened is that over time throughout discovery, Gotion’s counsel informed me that they had discovered that it was actually not Gotion, Inc., that was operating the plant and was the tenant, but it was actually the Gotion Illinois [New Energy].”