Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

PSA: Virginia DOLI Amends COVID Workplace Standard

October 18, 2021 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
As the governmental response to COVID-19 evolves, so do the various standards that apply to employers. Effective September 8, 2021, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry superseded its earlier permanent workplace standard with a new standard. In many ways, the new standard simplifies compliance because it gets rid of what I believed to be overly confusing workplace classifications into risk levels and simply applies the new standard to all workplaces regardless of how they would have been classified. Some key points to keep in mind regarding the new standard are the following (with the recommendation that all employers read and understand the text of the standard):

Masks: All unvaccinated employees must wear masks in all public, common, or shared workspaces with certain exceptions. These exceptions include when an employee is alone in a room/office, when eating, certain medical conditions, and where it is important that the mouth can be seen (such as communication with the deaf). Vaccinated employees need not mask up unless working in a high or substantially transmission area per the CDC Data Tracker.
Vaccination Requirement: As of now, the DOLI does not require employee vaccinations. However, employers will need to have a way to determine vaccination status to comply with other parts of the standard.

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Reprinted courtesy of The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

Californians Swarm Few Listings Cuts to Affordable Homes

September 24, 2014 — John Gittelsohn and Nadja Brandt – Bloomberg
The 160 units at Santa Monica, California’s Belmar Apartments received 4,600 applications ahead of the project’s July opening, a measure of the competition for scarce affordable housing. The Related Cos. project, where two-bedroom units rent for $946 a month, is among the last built with financing from redevelopment agencies, the taxpayer-backed programs that Governor Jerry Brown eliminated three years ago to help balance California’s budget. Without that source of $1 billion a year, the state’s supply of funds for building low- and moderate-income housing is running dry as real estate prices surge. “The abolishment of the redevelopment agencies by Governor Brown is the single biggest problem” for affordable housing, said William Witte, president of Related’s California division, which also is seeking buyers for condominiums next to Belmar with an average price of $2.4 million. “Since there’s little to no help from the federal government, the loss of redevelopment funds is devastating.” Mr. Gittelsohn may be contacted at johngitt@bloomberg.net; Ms. Brandt may be contacted at nbrandt@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of John Gittelsohn and Nadja Brandt, Bloomberg

Kahana Feld Partner Jeff Miragliotta and Senior Associate Rachael Marvin Obtain Early Dismissal of Commercial Litigation Cases in New York and New Jersey

August 26, 2024 — Rachael Marvin - Kahana Feld
KF attorneys Jeff Miragliotta and Rachael Marvin recently secured early dismissal for a commercial real estate client on pre-answer motions to dismiss for two cases involving disputes over commercial properties in Union County, New Jersey and Suffolk County, New York. Plaintiff argued it was entitled to damages in excess of 50 million dollars, including punitive damages, for claims involving trade libel, defamation, conspiracy, and tortious interference with contract and prospective economic advantage for reports that were prepared in connection with the use of a commercial building in Union County, New Jersey. KF attorneys successfully argued that the statute of limitations had run for each of plaintiff’s claims by utilizing a decision from the Supreme Court of New Jersey in an underlying case filed against Union County. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Rachel Marvin, Kahana Feld
Ms. Marvin may be contacted at rmarvin@kahanafeld.com

A Word to the Wise: The AIA Revised Contract Documents Could Lead to New and Unanticipated Risks - Part II

October 16, 2018 — George Talarico - Construction Executive
Part I addressed general conditions, revised insurance terms, revisions that affect owner’s required insurance and revisions that affect contractor’s required insurance. REVISIONS THAT AFFECT DISPUTE RESOLUTION A seemingly minor but noteworthy change is to the definition of “Claim.” Under Section 15.1 a “Claim” is defined to:

include a request for a modification of contract time; and
exclude any requirement that an owner must file a claim to impose liquidated damages.

Notably, any request relating to contract time must be brought within the specified time period for Notice of Claim and in the prescribed manner. There are at least two traps for the unwary. First, even though email is regularly used for communications among the parties, the revised contract documents do not recognize email as an acceptable form of delivery of a Notice of Claim. Second, an unwary contractor may wrongly assume that an owner’s failure to assert a claim for LDs means that LDs will not be imposed. This may lull the contractor into failing to timely assert its own claim for a time extension and thereby waiving its ability to do so. Reprinted courtesy of George Talarico, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the court decision
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Mr. Talarico may be contacted at gtalarico@sillscummis.com

Trump Administration Announces New Eviction Moratorium

October 12, 2020 — Zachary Kessler - Gravel2Gavel
With the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to be felt by the American public, the Trump Administration has taken steps to try to allay a coming eviction crisis by enacting a moratorium on evictions through the end of 2020. With the first eviction moratorium instituted by the CARES Act expiring, lawmakers have been pushing to include eviction protections in the next COVID-19 relief package. However, with Congressional leaders still far from an agreement on the next bill, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now used its emergency pandemic powers under the Public Health Service Act to temporarily halt residential evictions. Under the Order, a landlord, owner of a residential property, or other person with a legal right to pursue eviction or possessory actions will not be permitted to evict any covered person through December 31, 2020. Under the Order, “covered persons,” are any tenant, lessee, or resident of a residential property who meets the five-part test included in the order and delivers the executed declaration to their landlord. The five requirements in the declaration, which must be certified under the penalty of perjury are:

The individual has used best efforts to obtain all available government assistance for rent or housing;
The individual either (i) expects to earn no more than $99,000 in annual income for Calendar Year 2020 (or no more than $198,000 if filing a joint tax return), (ii) was not required to report any income in 2019 to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, or (iii) received an Economic Impact Payment (stimulus check) pursuant to Section 2201 of the CARES Act;

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Reprinted courtesy of Zachary Kessler, Pillsbury
Mr. Kessler may be contacted at zachary.kessler@pillsburylaw.com

California Court of Appeal Makes Short Work Trial Court Order Preventing Party From Supplementing Experts

August 06, 2019 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Years ago I recommended to a client that we hire a construction defect expert in a case. The client, a thrifty fellow, responded, “But I thought you were the construction expert. Why do I need to hire another expert? A fair question and one that caught me flat footed. Whether I’m an “expert” or not can be debated, but I explained to the client that while I was an attorney whose practice focused on construction law, I was not someone who he would want to take the stand and testify about the engineering design and seismic stability of pilings. For that, he needed an expert. In construction litigation it’s not uncommon for parties and their attorneys to hire “experts.” There are even special rules set forth in the California Code of Civil Procedure for disclosing, supplementing and deposing experts, which basically provide as follows: 1. Demand for Exchange of Expert Information: After the court sets a trial date in a case, any party may demand that each party exchange information concerning the experts they intend to have testify at trial; 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

Record Keeping—the Devil’s in the Details

July 30, 2015 — Craig Martin – Construction Contract Advisor
Another court has found that poor record keeping will prevent recovery on a claim. The court in Weatherproofing Tech., Inc. v. Alacran Contracting, LLC found that a contractor’s documents were a mess and that no reasonable jury could base a verdict on the contractor’s records. The underlying project involved the construction of an army training facility. The total project cost approximated $13 million. Alacran, the general contractor, subcontracted about $3 million of the work to Weatherproofing Tech. Alacran paid Weatherproofing $700,000 for its work, even though Weatherproofing submitted invoices of more than $2 million. Alacran justified its refusal to pay Weatherproofing on the grounds that the parties had agreed to split the profit and loss on the project and the project was out of money. Not surprisingly, Weatherproofing sued Alacran for the amount owed. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Craig Martin, Lamson, Dugan and Murray, LLP
Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin@ldmlaw.com

Event-Cancellation Insurance Issues During a Pandemic

September 07, 2020 — Lorelie S. Masters & Latosha M. Ellis - Hunton Andrews Kurth
As the effects of coronavirus continue, organizations and companies now are considering whether events in late 2020 and early 2021 can take place or need to be converted to virtual events. What insurance effects will those changes and cancellations have? Consideration of these important decisions requires a review of both event-cancellation insurance and a consideration of force majeure and other such issues. On the insurance front, years ago, many policyholders purchased event-cancellation insurance for events in 2020, 2021, and even as far out as 2024. Such policies, purchased before the middle of March 2020, generally contain explicit coverage “buy-backs” for losses from “communicable disease.” That is, the policyholders paid an extra, specifically identified premium to remove any exclusion for communicable disease from these policies. Typically, these policies do not use the word, “virus”, but rather use “communicable disease”; and exclude neither. Those policies typically cover a specified amount of net profit and include additional coverages for “Cost of Remedial Action”, “Future Marketing Expense”, etc., over and above that specified amount of coverage. Reprinted courtesy of Lorelie S. Masters, Hunton Andrews Kurth and Latosha M. Ellis, Hunton Andrews Kurth Ms. Masters may be contacted at lmasters@HuntonAK.com Ms. Ellis may be contacted at lellis@HuntonAK.com Read the court decision
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FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES