Construction Defect Lawsuits May Follow Hawaii Condo Boom
January 23, 2013 —
CDJ STAFFHawaii is having a bit of a building boom and with this, as Honolulu Civil Beat points out, comes a boom in construction defect litigation, noting that “if past experience is any indicator, the wave of construction will likely be followed by a surge in complex and, for attorneys at least, profitable litigation.” The article provides plenty of evidence to back up that assertion.
Defect claims are already resulted in a settlement at Pinnacle Honolulu, a 37-unit luxury condominium project. The owners received a $2.4 million settlement after building code violations were discovered, including fire partitions that either were not fully extended or were breached in some fashion.
Meanwhile, the owners of the Koolani Condominiums are still trying to collect on their $12 million arbitration award related to problems in the water system. Another luxury condominium project, the Hokua Condominiums, also has had problems with flooding from water pipes.
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Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (10/11/23) – Millennials Struggle Finding Homes, Additional CHIPS Act Funding Available, and the Supreme Court Takes up Hotel Lawsuit Case
November 16, 2023 —
Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law BlogIn our latest roundup, EV charging stations become more prevalent at commercial locations, home ownership becomes more difficult for younger Americans, Macy’s announces plans to build additional stores within strip malls, and more!
- Due to several factors including overpriced housing and student debt, millennials will not have the same level of home ownership as previous generations. (Jordan Rosenfeld, Yahoo)
- With the U.S. being short about 3.8 million housing units according Freddie Mac, 3-D printing may prove to be the answer while also being cost effective and environmentally friendly. (Lesley Stahl, Aliza Chasan, Shari Finkelstein and Collette Richards, CBS)
- The Department Commerce of announced a new initiative to funnel $500 million in CHIPS Act funding to projects with capital investments below $300 million that support the construction, expansion or modernization of semiconductor-related facilities in the U.S. (Sebastian Obando, Construction Dive)
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Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team, Pillsbury
Pennsylvania Civil Engineers Give the State's Infrastructure a "C-" Grade
November 28, 2022 —
American Society of Civil EngineersPENNSYLVANIA. — The Pennsylvania Council of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released the 2022 Report Card for Pennsylvania's Infrastructure today at three congruent news conferences across the state including Harrisburg, Lehigh Valley, and Pittsburgh, with 15 categories of infrastructure receiving an overall grade of a "C-". This is the same grade issued by the council in its 2018 report. A "C-" means Pennsylvania's infrastructure is in mediocre condition and requires attention. Pennsylvania's aviation and rail networks are helping to drive economic growth in the region and an improved roadway network is helping increase efficiency for the regional and national economies, but an aging infrastructure network and struggling water systems threaten the health, safety and welfare of the region. Civil engineers graded aviation (B-), bridges (D+), dams (C), drinking water (D), energy (C), hazardous waste (B-), levees (C), parks (C+), ports (C+), rail (C), roads (C-), solid waste (C+), stormwater (D), transit (D), and wastewater (D-).
"Considering Pennsylvania's aging infrastructure and its critical role in our state's economy, policy makers must continue to prioritize dedicated funding to update and improve all infrastructure assets," said Rep. Mike Carroll, D-118. "Failure to do so will seriously harm the quality of life for every citizen."
"This report shows that Pennsylvania's infrastructure has seen some noteworthy improvements and that our lawmakers are prioritizing the built environment, but out-of-sight, out-of-mind systems such as water and wastewater pipelines are lacking the necessary attention," said David DiGioia, chair, 2022 Report Card for Pennsylvania's Infrastructure. "With help from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we could improve our communities for generations if we double down on investment and close our funding gaps across all sectors included in this report."
The Report Card was created as a public service to citizens and policymakers to inform them of the infrastructure needs in their state. Civil engineers used their expertise and school report card-style letter grades to condense complicated data into an easy-to-understand analysis of Pennsylvania's infrastructure network. ASCE State and Regional Infrastructure Report Cards are modeled after the national Infrastructure Report Card, which gave America's infrastructure an overall grade of 'C-' in 2021.
To view the report card and all five categories, visit https://infrastructurereportcard.org/state-item/Pennsylvania/.
ABOUT THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 150,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America's oldest national engineering society. ASCE works to raise awareness of the need to maintain and modernize the nation's infrastructure using sustainable and resilient practices, advocates for increasing and optimizing investment in infrastructure, and improve engineering knowledge and competency. For more information, visit www.asce.org or www.infrastructurereportcard.org and follow us on Twitter, @ASCETweets and @ASCEGovRel.
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“Since You Asked. . .”
October 15, 2024 —
Daniel Lund III - Lexology… you must now pay.
So said a California appellate court, affirming the trial court’s decision against a subcontractor suing for unpaid subcontract sums. Instead of being awarded those unpaid amounts, the subcontractor lost the case and was tagged with a $1.55 million attorney’s fees award and $270,000 costs award in favor of the defendants.
What went wrong?
California law requires a licensed contractor to maintain at all times proper workers’ compensation insurance coverage. The failure to maintain the coverage and have the certificate of coverage on file with the California Contractors State License Board results in “automatic and immediate suspension” of the contractor license. Retroactive reinstatement of the license may occur only if the contractor provides proof of the insurance within 90 days of the effective date of the insurance certificate – unless the contractor can show that failure to have the certificate on file was “due to circumstances beyond the control of the licensee.”
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Daniel Lund III, PhelpsMr. Lund may be contacted at
daniel.lund@phelps.com
Are Defense Costs In Addition to Policy Limits?
December 02, 2015 —
Craig Martin – Construction Contractor AdvisorI recently had a discussion with an insurer about whether defense costs were included within the policy limits of a client’s coverage or in addition to policy limits. This was an important discussion because if costs of defense were included in the policy limits, my client was going to exceed those policy limits in a hurry. How would this situation play out with your insurance?
Fortunately, the majority of insurance policies, such as Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies, provide that defense costs are “in addition” to the policy limits. But some policies, often times referred to as “burning limits” policies, provide that cost of defense is included in the policy limits. This means that if you have $1,000,000.00 policy limits, your costs of defense will reduce that limit throughout the course of litigation.
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Craig Martin, Lamson, Dugan and Murray, LLPMr. Martin may be contacted at
cmartin@ldmlaw.com
Risk Protection: Force Majeure Agreements Take on Renewed Relevance
November 30, 2020 —
Michael E. Carson - Construction ExecutiveForce majeure clauses have been standard in contracts dating back hundreds of years in the United States—and even longer in Europe. “Force majeure,” which is French for “greater force,” removes liability for unforeseen events that prevent parties from fulfilling contractual obligations.
In a year defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, these clauses have gone from boilerplate basics to something worthy of further examination and attention in order to minimize risk for all parties involved in a construction project. Prior to COVID-19, drafters might have considered a localized or regional event that would lead to invoking a force majeure clause. It is doubtful, however, that anybody envisioned the impact on such a world-wide scale.
UNDERSTANDING THE AGREEMENTS
Force majeure clauses cover unforeseen events, a broad term that encompasses both acts of God and human-caused incidents. These range from natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes to acts of terrorism, strikes, political strife, government actions, war and other difficult- or impossible-to-predict disruptions. When such an event occurs, the force majeure clause attempts to remove, or at least reduce, uncertainty as to the rights and liabilities of the parties to the agreement.
Reprinted courtesy of
Michael E. Carson, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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Mr. Carson may be contacted at
michael.carson@nationwide.com
Top 10 Insurance Cases of 2024
January 21, 2025 —
Jeffrey J. Vita & Michelle A. Grieco - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.Federal and state courts tackled a myriad of interesting insurance-related issues this past year. The U.S. Supreme Court also surprisingly addressed coverage issues in 2024, in not one—but two—decisions. It is rare for the Supreme Court to confront insurance coverage issues which usually involve matters of state law. The highest court’s assessment of the nuances of insurance to resolve maritime choice of law issues and interpret an insurer’s role in bankruptcy proceedings is indicative of the significant role that insurance coverage plays in resolving commercial disputes.
Additionally, 2024 included a pivotal opinion from the 5th Circuit, which welcomed the principle that negligent construction can constitute “property damage” under a CGL policy if it causes a harmful change to the property. Elsewhere in the country, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that reckless conduct can qualify as an “accident” under a CGL policy’s definition of “occurrence”; however, the court simultaneously ruled that greenhouse gases fall within the scope of “pollutants” under the policy’s pollution exclusion. Cyber coverage decisions were also prominent, and the 5th Circuit chimed in with an interesting decision interpreting the scope of coverage afforded under a “system failure” provision. These decisions represent a mere sampling of the multitude of insurance issues courts nationwide have grappled with in 2024.
Reprinted courtesy of
Jeffrey J. Vita, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. and
Michelle A. Grieco, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Mr. Vita may be contacted at JVita@sdvlaw.com
Ms. Grieco may be contacted at MGrieco@sdvlaw.com
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Gibbs Giden is Pleased to Announce Four New Partners and Two New Associates
January 08, 2024 —
Gibbs Giden Locher Turner Senet & Wittbrodt, LLPWe take great pleasure in announcing that
Richard Marks and
Kyle Marks have joined the firm. They bring a combined 60 years of real property law experience to Gibbs Giden. Well known Title Insurance and seasoned real estate attorneys they have both served as chair of the Title Insurance Subsection of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and are adjunct professors at Southwestern University School of Law. We are excited to welcome these two exceptional partners and their commitment to representing clients with honesty, integrity, and excellence. You can find them in our firm’s Westlake office.
Talented attorneys
Samantha Riggen and
Christopher Trembley have been named partners. Samantha represents clients in all areas of business and commercial matters with an emphasis on construction litigation on both public and private projects. Christopher’s practice also focuses on construction litigation on behalf of a wide spectrum of industry-stakeholder clients, including suppliers, contractors, and owners. Both work in our firm’s Westlake Village office.
We are also pleased to announce we’ve hired two new associates.
Sarah La Mendola and
Madison Wedderspoon. Sarah has developed an expertise in a wide range of real estate, business, and corporate matters. She received her JD from the University of Pavia, one of the top universities in Italy, in 2012 and her LLM from UCLA in 2015. You can find Sarah in our Westlake Village office. Madison recently graduated from the Boyd School of Law cum laude, is based in our Las Vegas office and works in the areas of business law, contracts, healthcare law, construction, real estate, and common interest community transactional and litigation work.
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Gibbs Giden
