Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Supplement to New California Construction Laws for 2019

January 08, 2019 — Daniel F. McLennon - Smith Currie
A representative of the Contractors State License Board would like to emphasize a benefit of SB 1042 not mentioned in the report below that Smith Currie published recently. Importantly, the new law allows the CSLB to work with licensees, resolve complaints informally, and avoid a full Administrative Procedure Act hearing brought by the California Attorney General’s office. If the CSLB and licensee are unable to resolve a citation informally, the licensee is still entitled to the APA hearing. Contractors receiving CSLB citations are wise to avail themselves of this process. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Daniel F. McLennon, Smith Currie
Mr. McLennon may be contacted at dfmclennon@smithcurrie.com

Who Will Pay for San Francisco's $750 Million Tilting Tower?

February 02, 2017 — James Tarmy & Kartikay Mehrotra – Bloomberg
Nina Agabian, a retired director of research in global health science at the University of California, bought a 29th-floor apartment in San Francisco’s Millennium Tower in 2010. “It was supposed to be a wonderful building,” she said in January, sitting in a leather chair in the building’s vast, low-lit, owner's-club level. “For many of us, who left our business lives to start our older years, this had become a nice, comfortable place.” The building, which opened in 2008 and was touted as the most luxurious tower in San Francisco, became a beacon of the city’s burgeoning wealth, attracting tech millionaires, venture capitalists, and even the San Francisco 49ers retired quarterback Joe Montana. The 58-story tower's shine faded on May 10, 2016, when Agabian attended a homeowners association meeting and was informed that the building had sunk 16 inches into the earth and tilted over 15 inches at its tip and 2 inches at the base, according to suits filed by residents and the city of San Francisco. “You can imagine how distressed we were to know that, for one, our lifetime investment and savings are at risk,” she said. “And we have no idea whether or not there’s a fix to it, and if there is a fix to it, what it will entail.” Reprinted courtesy of James Tarmy, Bloomberg and Kartikay Mehrotra, Bloomberg Mr. Tarmy may be followed on Twitter @jstarmy Mr. Mehrotra may be followed on Twitter @kartikaym Read the court decision
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San Francisco Half-Built Apartment Complex Destroyed by Fire

March 12, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to San Jose Mercury News, a 250 million dollar apartment complex being built in San Francisco, California received “catastrophic damage” from a fire on March 11th. The complex was being developed by BRE Properties, Inc., and “was slated to open sometime later this year.” Initial reports blamed high winds for the start of the blaze, however, San Jose Mercury news reported that “downtown San Francisco experienced wind speeds of no more than 10 mph Tuesday, and that heavy winds were not expected Tuesday night” according to the National Weather Service. “Representatives for [BRE Properties, Inc.] were not available for comment,” as reported by San Jose Mercury News. Read the court decision
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Supreme Court Finds Insurance Coverage for Intentional (and Despicable) Act of Contractor’s Employee

July 21, 2018 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Not to cast shade on your fun in the sun, but here’s an unusual, albeit sad and creepy, one for you. I’m bummed even writing about this one. In Liberty Surplus Insurance Corporation v. Ledesma & Meyer Construction Company, Inc., Case No. S236765 (June 4, 2018), the California Supreme Court addressed whether a general contractor’s commercial general liability carrier was obligated to defend and whether the carrier was liable for damages sustained by a young girl who was molested by an employee of the general contractor during construction at a school. At issue was whether the policy’s definition of an “occurrence,” which was defined, like most policies, as “an accident,” was triggered by the “intentional” and clearly not accidental act of the general contractor’s employee. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@wendel.com

The Regulations on the Trump Administration's Chopping Block

August 02, 2017 — Pam Radtke Russell - Engineering News-Record
The Trump administration's next big step toward repealing the controversial Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule is official, with a proposal to rescind the Obama-era regulation appearing in the Federal Register on July 27, setting off a relatively short comment period that will end Aug. 28. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Pam Radtke Russell, ENR
Mr. Russell may be contacted at Russellp@bnpmedia.com

KB Homes Sues Condo Buyers over Alleged Cybersquatting and Hacking

October 22, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Willowbrook, a condominium complex in Lakewood Ranch, Florida has had problems with water intrusion. Now the builder is having problems with some of the residents. National home builder KB Homes is alleging that a pair of Willowbrook home owners who created a web site about their problems have violated federal cybersquatting laws, as the web site names they have registered are close to that KB Homes. The suit alleges that Andrew Smith and Daniel Koehler hope to either get KB Homes to purchase the web site or to buy back their homes. The lawsuit also alleges that three other individuals, William Crismon, Patrick McGettigan, and Armando Oyola-Delgado, conspired to intercept e-mails between KB Home and Dueall Construction. KB Homes claims that the three gained access to a WiFi hotspot used by Dueall. Read the court decision
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Just Because You Record a Mechanic’s Lien Doesn’t Mean You Get Notice of Foreclosure

September 15, 2016 — Christopher G. Hill – Construction Law Musings
As longtime (or new readers for that matter) know, mechanic’s liens are near and dear to my heart here at Construction Law Musings. These powerful tools to collect for your hard work on a construction project are great when prepared and recorded in the very specific fashion required by the Virginia legislature and courts. In most situations, if done properly, a mechanic’s lien gives you some security and priority for your construction claim that you would not have with a simple judgment lien. Despite the power of a properly perfected and enforced mechanic’s lien (and the fact that the end result of a full mechanic’s lien suit that remains unsettled is in fact a foreclosure), a recent case in the Eastern District of Virginia, Weinberg v. J.P. Morgan Chase, et. al., (thanks for the head’s up on this case to the folks at the Construction Payment Blog) held that under Virginia statute mechanic’s lien holders are not entitled to notice of foreclosure. In the Weinberg case, the plaintiff, a pro se lien claimant that recorded two different liens, one pre-foreclosure and one post-foreclosure, and who had not received notice of the intervening foreclosure, argued, among other things, that he should have been given notice of the foreclosure on the deed of trust on the property by J. P. Morgan Chase. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

How Machine Learning Can Help with Urban Development

March 27, 2019 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
An experimentation project has demonstrated the capabilities of machine learning in urban development. It used images as a starting point and came up with interesting and useful applications. “I read data science papers on how machine vision algorithms can be used with satellite imagery. I immediately saw a connection to what we had been doing,” Antti Kauppi, architect at Arkkitehdit Sankari, explains. “Most people associate image recognition with Google’s visual searches. Google can distinguish whether a photo shows a cat or another animal, for example. We went a step further.” An Experiment with Open Urban Imagery Arkkitehdit Sankari Oy, a Finnish architectural design firm began the experimentation project CityCNN in May 2018. It received funding from KIRA-digi, the Finnish government’s digitalization program for the built environment. CityCNN explored the possibilities of using machine learning and open data for urban development. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

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