California Judicial Council Votes to Rescind Prohibitions on Eviction and Foreclosure Proceedings
September 28, 2020 —
David Rao & Lyndsey Torp - Snell & Wilmer Real Estate Litigation BlogThe California Judicial Council’s emergency rules staying evictions and judicial foreclosures are coming to an end.
On March 27, 2020, the Governor of California issued executive order N-38-20, giving the Judicial Council emergency authority to act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 6, 2020, the Judicial Council of California voted to approve temporary emergency rules of court. Rule 1 prohibited the issuance of a summons, or the entering of a default, in an eviction action for both residential and commercial properties except as necessary to protect public health and safety. Rule 1 also continued all pending unlawful detainer trials for at least 60 days, with no new trials being set until at least 60 days after a request was filed. Rule 2 stayed all pending judicial foreclosure actions, tolled the statute of limitations, and extended the deadlines for responding to such actions.
Rule 1 and Rule 2 were to remain in effect until 90 days after the Governor declared the state of emergency resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic lifted, or until repealed by action of the Judicial Council. On August 13, 2020, the Judicial Council voted 19-1 to sunset Rule 1 and Rule 2 as of September 1, 2020. Beginning September 2, 2020, California state courts are authorized to issue summons on unlawful detainer actions, enter defaults, and set trial dates on request. Stays on pending judicial foreclosure actions will be lifted.
Reprinted courtesy of
David Rao, Snell & Wilmer and
Lyndsey Torp, Snell & Wilmer
Mr. Rao may be contacted at drao@swlaw.com
Ms. Torp may be contacted at ltorp@swlaw.com
Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (3/20/24) – Construction Backlog Falls, National Association of Realtors Settle Litigation, and Commercial Real Estate Market’s Effect on City Cuts
April 15, 2024 —
Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law BlogIn our latest roundup, bad loans outweigh loss reserves at top six U.S. banks, the FCC announces a proposed rule aimed at “bulk billing,” office-to-multifamily conversion projects grow in major metro cities, and more!
- The National Association of Realtors has agreed to settle litigation that accused them of artificially inflating real estate commissions – a major decision that could reshape the housing market for buyers, sellers and agents. (Rachel Siegel, The Washington Post)
- An NYU professor considers the positives and negatives of cities cutting services or raising other kinds of taxes to offset the continued faltering of the commercial real estate market. (Alan Rappeport, The New York Times)
- Construction backlog fell in February for every size of contractor except for those with under $30 million in annual revenue, while, over the past year, the largest contractors – those with greater than $50 million in revenue – have experienced the greatest decline in backlog. (Sebastian Obando, Construction Dive).
Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team
The Choice Is Yours – Or Is It? Anti-Choice-of-Laws Statutes Applicable to Construction Contracts
October 03, 2022 —
Tiffany Raush & Tanya McGill - ConsensusDocsDuring contract negotiations and review, the parties make choices about what risks they are willing to accept and at what cost. But one often overlooked choice—the choice of law applicable to the contract—can undermine carefully negotiated construction contracts and expose contractors to risks they never intended to accept.
Choice-of-law provisions are standard provisions in most contracts. These provisions allow the parties to the contract to decide which state’s laws will apply to their contract. Often, choice-of-law in the construction contract is the law of the state where the project is located and there will be no issue. But, if the project is located in an unfamiliar, the owner or prime contractor may prefer the laws of the state where the owner or prime contractor is primarily located over the laws of the state where the project is located.
Generally, most states will enforce the parties’ choice of law in a contract. But that may not be the case for construction contracts. States like Texas, California, New York, Florida, Louisiana, and others may prohibit parties from agreeing to the application of another state’s law for construction projects in their states.
Reprinted courtesy of
Tiffany Raush, Jones Walker LLP (ConsensusDocs) and Tanya McGill, University of Mississippi School of Law Student, 2023 Graduate (ConsensusDocs)
Ms. Raush may be contacted at traush@joneswalker.com
Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
Insurer’s Consent Not Needed for Settlement
October 14, 2013 —
CDJ STAFFThe Texas Supreme Court has concluded in Lennar Corp. v. Markel Am. Ins. Co. that “the costs incurred by a builder to locate and repair damage caused by the builder’s defective product are covered under its general liability insurance policy.” Hunton & Williams have issued a Client Alert discussing the case.
For the background of the case, Lennar built about 800 homes using EIFS. The EIFS trapped water and the homes suffered from rot, structural damage, mold, mildew, and termites. Lennar fixed all the homes so built, avoiding litigation. Lennar “notifed its insurers of the defects and invited its insurers to participate in the proactive remediation program.”
A lower court had agreed with Markel, one of Lennar’s insurers, that the losses were not “caused by property damage,” and that Lennar should not have made “voluntary payments without Markel’s consent.” The Texas Supreme Court granted review, rejecting Markel’s argument and affirming the jury’s finding.
According to Hunton & Williams, the implications of the Texas Lennar decision is that it “confirms that all insurers with policy in effect at the time of property damage are responsible for all sums for which the policyholder is liable.”
Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
Define the Forum and Scope of Recovery in Contract Disputes
March 02, 2020 —
Phillip L. Sampson Jr. & Richard F. Whiteley - Construction ExecutivePrivate and public companies spend billions of dollars every year on construction projects. For these projects, time is money, and incorporating the most advantageous legal terms in the construction contract can minimize the number and extent of disputes, and ultimately save money.
It is important to remember that the provisions in construction contracts are negotiable. In a common scenario, the contractor and owner informally agree to the scope of a construction project and its cost. When it is time to reduce the deal to writing, the contractor and owner decide to use an AIA contract that appears to be a standard form. The document looks to be on point, and the parties simply need to fill in a few blanks with the cost and scope-specific information. Presuming that the AIA provisions are mutually protective and beneficial, the parties do not think about altering the “standard” terms. They sign the contract, and the project begins.
Months later, the owner and contractor end up disputing delays on the project, entitlement to various payments, and whether certain aspects of the work are defective. At this point, the parties realize that some of the contract’s terms could have been drafted a bit more favorably—but by that time it’s too late. So remember, construction contracts are negotiable, even provisions within “standard” AIA contracts.
Reprinted courtesy of
Phillip L. Sampson Jr. and Richard F. Whiteley, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
Mr. Sampson may be contacted at phillip.sampson@bracewell.com.
Mr. Whiteley may be contacted at richard.whiteley@bracewell.com.
Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
COVID-19 Business Interruption Claims Four Years Later: What Have We Learned?
September 23, 2024 —
Patrick McKnight - The Dispute ResolverFour and half years ago the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the globe, bringing with it interesting, but challenging, legal problems for construction attorneys. Construction projects ground to a halt. Ever-changing guidance from authorities ranging from the U.S. Department of Labor to local health authorities resulted in a web of evolving obligations for general contractors and subs alike. One of the most closely watched legal questions was the wave of business interruption claims filed by plaintiffs, many of whom owned businesses impacted by government shutdowns. During the opening months of the pandemic, I
noted that hundreds of business interruption claims had been filed by insureds across the country. At that time, the only thing certain was that although the outcome remained unknown, virus exclusions were likely to become more likely in the future. Needless to say, much has happened since early 2020.
What does the data say about the outcome of business interruption claims?
In sum, plaintiffs have had an uphill battle. A helpful resource for analyzing the outcome of business interruption suits is the
Covid Coverage Litigation Tracker (“Tracker”), an insurance law analytics tool offered by Penn Carey Law of the University of Pennsylvania. According to its website, “[t]he Covid Coverage Litigation Tracker is a multi-sourced database and dashboard through which to view the unfolding insurance litigation arising out of the pandemic in federal and state courts. Widely cited in briefs, judicial opinions, and the press, the tracker also serves as a proof of concept for new methods to identify, track, and understand emerging case congregations in real time.”
Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
Patrick McKnight, Fox Rothschild LLPMr. McKnight may be contacted at
pmcknight@foxrothschild.com
What Happens When Dave Chappelle Buys Up Your Town
June 05, 2023 —
Tyler J. Kelley - BloombergAmerica’s most reclusive comedian isn’t hard to find. Dave Chappelle hangs around downtown, buys coffee and shops like any other resident of Yellow Springs, Ohio. He smokes cigarettes and chats with passersby. He knows people, and they know him.
Yellow Springs is a special place. “Growing up here, literally on any given Saturday or Sunday, in any house that you walked into, there was going to be someone who was Jewish, someone who was an atheist, someone from a different country, somebody who was a person of color,” says Carmen Brown, a Black village council member whose family has lived in the town for 150 years. “There was going to be a clown, an astrophysicist, a janitor and a doctor—all hanging out.” Chappelle is a product of this environment, this culture of “discourse without discord,” she says.
Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
Bloomberg
The Ghosts of Baha Mar: How a $3.5 Billion Paradise Went Bust
January 06, 2016 —
John Lippert & Dawn McCarty – BloombergBeyond the tropical waters, across palm-fringed sands and behind locked gates, looms Baha Mar -- the largest and, at $3.5 billion, priciest resort in the Caribbean.
Here, no one frolics pool-side, pina colada in hand, or hits irons on the Jack Nicklaus golf course. No slot machines jingle-jangle in the casino. The Flamingo Bar, the Brasserie des Arts and the Cartier boutique lie dark. On this bright October morning in the Bahamas, all 2,200 guest rooms are empty.
The quiet is almost spooky here on the outskirts of Nassau, where the waterscape frills of nearby Paradise Island give way to the vast ghost-resort that is Baha Mar.
Just how the place ended up like this -- in a bankruptcy so colossal that it’s jeopardizing the Bahamas’s credit rating -- is the biggest business story to hit this Caribbean nation for as long as anyone here can remember. It stretches far beyond the white beaches and across time zones, to none other than the State Council of China.
Reprinted courtesy of
John Lippert, Bloomberg and
Dawn McCarty, Bloomberg Read the court decisionRead the full story...Reprinted courtesy of
