Jerehmy:
Those kinds of precast bsmt. wall systems are a ‘not-so-good’ substitute for a good, well designed poured conc. or a conc. blk. wall with a cont. conc. ftg. which can tolerate a little unbalanced loading and a little differential settlement. They require considerable attention to detail to make them work reasonably well. They seem to do a real selling job on those systems, and they make them $100 cheaper than the site-built wall, and then leave it to an inexperienced guy with a pick-up and hammer to install them and know what to do to make them work. They do depend on the wood fl. diaphragm for lateral support at the top, so the knee wall is certainly a problem. I don’t remember exactly what the interconnection detail is btwn. the wall units, but if that isn’t done right they may not even be good for much lateral loading in plane. They will just tip, on their ftg. edges, as individual rigid units, causing a saw-toothed surface at their top sill pl. Then, they eliminated half the wall units, for O.H. doors at one end. It sounds like it is sufficiently messed up to make for a good lawsuit. The question will be that the contractors may not have much more than their used pick-up and hammer in terms of assets to collect against the damages.