COLUMBUS OHIO BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Renee Zellweger Selling Connecticut Country Home

August 06, 2014 — Emily Heffter – Bloomberg
You had me at seven fireplaces (and a bread oven). Actress Renee Zellweger’s Connecticut country home, on the market for $1.6 million, is hardly roughing it. The luxury farmhouse, built in 1770 and updated in 2004, is a stylish and luxurious country getaway. Set on 38 acres overlooking the Quinebaug River in rural Pomfret Center, the retreat at 96 Cotton Rd is 3,463 square feet with a top-of-the-line kitchen, a bread oven in the family room and a swimming pool. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Emily Heffter, Zillow

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Wilke Fleury Attorney Featured in 2022 Best Lawyers in America and Best Lawyers: Ones To Watch!

September 13, 2021 — Wilke Fleury LLP
Wilke Fleury congratulates attorneys David Frenznick, Adriana Cervantes, Matthew Powell and Dan Egan on their inclusion in the 2022 Edition of Best Lawyers in America! Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers® has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation. Almost 108,000 industry-leading lawyers are eligible to vote (from around the world), and they have received over 13 million evaluations on the legal abilities of other lawyers based on their specific practice areas around the world. For the 2021 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America©, 9.4 million votes were analyzed. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Wilke Fleury LLP

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The Little Ice Age and Delay Claims

January 24, 2018 — Wally Zimolong - Supplemental Conditions
Much of the Eastern United States is just now emerging from a historic two week cold snap. In much of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, the temperature stayed below freezing for 15 days straight. Cities recorded the lowest temperatures in a quarter century. Winter Storm Grayson reeked havoc along the Eastern Coast bringing snow to places like Charleston and a crippling blizzard to Boston. The record cold snap also impacted the construction industry. Delivery delays, the inability to apply weather sensitive applications (like cast in place concrete), and the unavailability of labor are just a few things that extreme weather can cause on a construction project. If they happen at the wrong time, delays can destroy project schedules and make previous delays even worse. Delays cost money and can mean the difference between a profitable project from both the owner and contractors perspective. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Wally Zimolong, Zimolong LLC
Mr. Zimolong may be contacted at wally@zimolonglaw.com

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Disputes Will Not Be Subject to Arbitration Provision If There Is No “Significant Relationship”

November 29, 2021 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
As you know from prior articles, arbitration is a creature of contract. This means if you want your disputes to be resolved by binding arbitration, as opposed to litigation, you want to make sure there is an arbitration provision in your contract. If there are certain types of disputes you do not want subject to arbitration, you want to specify those types of disputes/claims in your arbitration provision. If you are not sure, make sure to discuss the pros and cons of arbitration with your counsel when drafting and negotiating the contract. However, even with a broad arbitration provision, there are times where a dispute may still fall out of the scope of the arbitration provision, i.e., the dispute is not arbitrable. If this occurs, such dispute will be resolved by litigation. Parties that have buyer’s remove and do not want to arbitrate their dispute may try to make this argument that the dispute is not subject to the scope of the arbitration provision. There are times this argument carries weight because the dispute has no significant relationship to the agreement with the arbitration provision, as shown below. In Deweees v. Johnson, 46 Fla. L. Weekly D2356b (Fla. 4th DCA 2021), a plaintiff purchased a home in a private residential community. The purchase contract with the developer contained a broad arbitration provision that materially provided that, “all post-closing claims, disputes, and controversies…between purchaser and seller will be resolved by binding arbitration except those arising under section G.5 and G.6 above.” Dewees, supra. Sections G.5 and G.6 provided that the purchaser will not interfere in the sales process with other purchasers and will not interfere with workmen during the construction process. There was also a workmanship and structural defect warranty for the dwelling that also contained an arbitration provision. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

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In Louisiana, Native Americans Struggle to Recover From Ida

August 07, 2022 — The Associated Press (Rebecca Santana) - Bloomberg
Along Bayou Pointe-Au-Chien, La. (AP) -- Driving through her village along a southeastern Louisiana bayou, tribal official Cherie Matherne points out the remnants of house after house — including her own — wrecked nine months ago when Hurricane Ida roared through the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe community. Beige trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and travel campers sit next to pilings that elevated homes 14 feet (4.3 meters) off the ground to protect them from flooding. But it was the wind that got them this time. For hours, the Category 4 hurricane tore off roofs and siding, ripped out insulation and scattered treasured belongings. It destroyed shrimp boats and tossed crab traps. “It’s going to take years before people can get back to their lives. The majority of people are still at a standstill,” said Matherne, the tribe’s cultural heritage and resiliency coordinator. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Bloomberg

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Is Construction Defect Litigation a Cause for Lack of Condos in Minneapolis?

September 17, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to Peter Callaghan writing for the Minn Post, while multi-family residential real estate is “hot” right now, most developers are building apartments rather than condos. Four developers spoke on the topic during Minneapolis City Council Member Lisa Goodman’s monthly “Lunch with Lisa” program. The developers stated that financing is more difficult for condos than it is for apartments, and millennials and baby boomers seem to prefer renting over buying. However, some developers stated that “the 10-year liability exposure for construction defects” was another reason to avoid condo building. However, not all developers avoid condo building in Minneapolis. Jim Stanton, owner of Shamrock Development, said that he still is building condos. Stanton declared that he “has a good relationship with his lender,” and “he hasn’t been sued a lot and has never had a suit reach court.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of

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Design-Build Contracting: Is the Shine Off the Apple?

March 09, 2020 — John P. Ahlers - Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC
The design-build delivery method offers many benefits to owners. Among the cited benefits are that projects are generally completed faster, at a lower cost, by allowing innovative approaches through early and continual contractor involvement in the design process. The design contractor serves as a single point of contact responsible for both the design and construction of the project. The Washington State Department of Transportation (“WSDOT”) utilized the design-build procurement method on the largest project ($2 billion) of its type in the state of Washington: the Highway 99 Tunnel, which was finished almost three years late after the tunnel-boring machine (“Bertha”) broke down six years ago. The sorted tale of the SR-99 Tunnel Project was the source of many of this firm’s blog articles.[1] The State of Washington staunchly maintained that the design-build contract protected its taxpayers from covering the repair costs to the tunnel-boring machine when it broke down in 2013. Bertha did not resume tunneling for almost two years, putting on hold removal of the Alaska Way viaduct and rebuilding of the Seattle Waterfront without an elevated highway. In December 2013, the contractor for the project, Seattle Tunnel Partners (“STP”), contended that a 110-foot long 8” steel pipe which Bertha hit caused the breakdown. That pipe had been installed for groundwater testing by WSDOT in 2002 during its preliminary engineering for the viaduct replacement project. The project’s Dispute Review Board (“DRB”) composed of three tunneling experts found that the pipe constituted a “differing site condition” for which the State was responsible to disclose to contractors. The Board, whose views were non-binding, did not opine about how much damage the undisclosed pipe cost.[2] In other words, the mere fact that a differing site condition occurred did not establish that there was a causal connection between the damages which STP was seeking (in excess of $600 million) and the differing site condition (the 8” steel pipe which WSDOT lawyers at trial derisively referred to as “nothing more than a toothpick for Bertha’s massive cutter head”). STP maintained that Bertha had made steady progress except for three days immediately after hitting the pipe. It didn’t help the contractors’ case that during the discovery phase of the two-month trial, WSDOT lawyers uncovered documents showing that the contractor’s tunnel workers encountered and logged the pipe before digging began.[3] Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of John P. Ahlers, Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC
Mr. Ahlers may be contacted at john.ahlers@acslawyers.com

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DC Circuit Approves, with Some Misgivings, FERC’s Approval of the Atlantic Sunrise Natural Gas Pipeline Extension

December 02, 2019 — Anthony B. Cavender - Gravel2Gavel
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit decided the case of Allegheny Defense Project, et al. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on August 2, 2019. In a Per Curiam opinion, the court denied petitions challenging the Commission’s orders permitting the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company’s expansion of an existing natural gas pipeline which extends from northern Pennsylvania across the Carolinas into Alabama. The expansion is called the “Atlantic Sunrise Project.” In February 2017, FERC approved the expansion, and denied various petitions, filed by environmental organizations and affected landowners, who then challenged the decision in the DC Circuit. However, the court concluded, on the basis of the administrative record, that these challenges “cannot surmount the deferential standards of agency review and binding DC Circuit precedent.” Under the law, the Commission must consider whether the projected pipeline project meets a market need, and whether the public benefits outweigh the harms. If both criteria are satisfied, FERC will, as in this instance, issue a certificate authorizing the pipeline’s construction, and that certificate also empowers the certificate holder to exercise eminent domain authority under to the Natural Gas Act when necessary. It was the latter consequence of the FERC’s determinations that caused several Pennsylvania landowners to file their objections with the Commission and seek to stay construction. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Anthony B. Cavender, Pillsbury
Mr. Cavender may be contacted at anthony.cavender@pillsburylaw.com

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