FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

A Few Things You Might Consider Doing Instead of Binging on Netflix

April 13, 2020 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Governments throughout the world have issued “shelter in place” orders requiring that residents stay at home except for “essential” purposes. As a result, in the United States, more than a third of Americans have been ordered to stay at home. This, in turn, has had a direct impact on construction projects which have slowed or have been temporarily shuttered altogether, and it will (not may) have an impact on the flow of project funds. So what can project owners and contractors do? We’ve got a few tips. 1. Read Your Contract, Paying Particular Attention to Force Majeure, No Damages for Delay and Notice Provisions For the most part, with the exception of statutory rights and remedies which we will discuss below, your contract spells out your rights and remedies should the proverbial “S” hit the fan. It is, in other words, the rules you agreed to, and you should know what those rules provide. Three provisions you should look for, and if they’re in your contract, you should review carefully are: (1) Force majeure provisions; (2) No damages for delay provisions; and (3) notice provisions. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

---

Ambiguity in Pennsylvania’s Statute of Repose Finally Cleared up by Superior Court

October 17, 2023 — Mark L. Parisi - White and Williams LLP
In an unpublished opinion from the Pennsylvania Superior Court handed down on August 31, 2023, a long-standing disagreement about the wording of Pennsylvania's Statute of Repose was finally resolved. In Pennsylvania, “a civil action or proceeding brought against any person lawfully performing or furnishing the design, planning, supervision or observation of construction or construction of any improvement to real property must be commenced within 12 years after completion of construction of such improvement” to recover most forms of damages that are sought in these kinds of cases. A statute of repose is different than a statute of limitations. A statute of repose is a hard line that does not shift. There is no discovery rule with a statute of repose. Most, if not all, states have statutes of repose for construction. The Pennsylvania statute of repose is among the longest in the country. It can be even longer – up to 14 years – if the injury (including property damage) or wrongful death “shall occur more than 10 and within 12 years after completion of construction.” Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Mark L. Parisi, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Parisi may be contacted at parisim@whiteandwilliams.com

---

Will There Be Construction Defect Legislation Introduced in the 2019 Colorado Legislative Session?

March 18, 2019 — David McLain - Colorado Construction Litigation Blog
With the 2019 Colorado legislative session well underway, the construction industry is waiting with bated breath to see what the Democrat controlled legislature might do with respect to construction defect legislation. In recent years, having a split legislature has prevented any attempts to roll back positive changes in the law, either from the legislature or Colorado courts, that have been hailed by the construction community. This year, odds are good that we will see at least one bill similar to two introduced last year that would hinder the ability to have disputes decided by binding arbitration. While not full frontal assaults on the Colorado Supreme Court decision in the Vallagio case, HB18-1261, the “Colorado Arbitration Fairness Act,” and HB 18-1262, the “Arbitration Services Provider Transparency Act,” would have negatively impacted the ability to resolve any type of case through arbitration. Anything that prevents the resolution of construction defect cases through arbitration will increase the judgments and settlements in such cases, ultimately increasing the costs of construction and for insurance for those in the industry. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of David McLain, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC
Mr. McLain may be contacted at mclain@hhmrlaw.com

---

Florida Law: Interplay of SIR and the Made-Whole Doctrine

March 12, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Amanda Baggett of Roger Towers explained the nuances of self-insured retention or “SIR,” which “typically refers to a dollar amount stated in a liability policy that the insured must satisfy before the insurer is required to defend or indemnify a claim.” Baggett stated that most of the time, the SIR is satisfied by the insurer paying the initial defense costs up to the SIR. However, “the Florida Supreme Court has held that an insured may satisfy the SIR using funds received from a third party. Intervest Construction of Jax, Inc. v. General Fidelity Ins. Co., 133 So. 3d 494 (Fla. 2014).” Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

---

General Contractor Gets Fired [Upon] for Subcontractor’s Failure to Hire Apprentices

September 23, 2024 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
As most public works contractors know, Labor Code section 1777.5 requires the hiring of apprentices on public works projects and, under Labor Code section 1777.7, violations are subject to civil penalties of up $100/day and up to $300/day days for repeated violations within a three-year period. In Lusardi Construction Co. v. Dept. of Industrial Relations, 102 Cal.App.5th (2024), a prime contractor learned the hard way that not only could it be penalized for its failure to hire apprentices but that it could also be liable for its subcontractor’s failure to hire apprentices. Forewarned is to be forearmed. The Lusardi Construction Case In 2014, general contractor Lusardi Construction Company hired subcontractor Pro Works Contracting to perform iron reinforcing work on a public works project owned by the San Marcos Unified School District. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

---

Locating Construction Equipment with IoT and Mobile Technology

May 13, 2019 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
It can take hours, or even days, to find a specific scissor lift on a large construction site – multiply that with hundreds of machines on the site and, then, you grasp the scale of the dilemma. Three companies joined forces to test an IoT solution that could fix the problem, cost-efficiently. Ramirent is a construction equipment rental and service firm that operates in nine European countries. It uses digital tools and services to add value to its customers and improve the efficiency of construction operations. In November 2018, Ramirent, SRV, and Kaltiot completed a test on promising technology that is used to locate construction equipment indoors. The experiment took place in Helsinki and was partly funded by the national KIRA-digi digitalization project. Setting up the Test Tomi Anttila, Development Manager at Ramirent Finland Oy, explained that they chose scissor lifts as a test subject for a particular reason: “They are an essential tool in construction. Whenever you have to work flexibly above the floor level – doing HVACE installations, for example – you need a movable lift. On our test site, REDI, there were over 150 lifts at any moment.” Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

---

Wells Fargo Shuns Peers’ Settlement in U.S in Mortgage

May 13, 2014 — Andrew Zajac – Bloomberg
Following two years in which its big-bank peers paid almost $2 billion to resolve fraud accusations by the Federal Housing Administration, Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) has decided it isn’t giving up so easily. Wells Fargo was one of five banks that agreed in 2012 to a nationwide, $25 billion settlement with the Justice Department over mortgage wrongdoing that included botched foreclosures. The FHA then took additional action against four of the banks, including Wells Fargo, for related housing-crisis wrongdoing. Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. decided to settle those matters. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, which argued the nationwide settlement should have blocked the new FHA claims against it, chose to fight. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Andrew Zajac, Bloomberg
Mr. Zajac may be contacted at azajac@bloomberg.net

---

“But I didn’t know what I was signing….”

May 30, 2018 — Bobby Kethcart - Snell & Wilmer Real Estate Litigation Blog
In real estate cases—which frequently involve long purchase agreements, loan documents, personal guarantees, deeds of trust, etc.—we’ve likely all had a client or opposing party who trots out the line that they didn’t know what they were signing, or they didn’t read or understand what they were signing, so the document shouldn’t be enforced according to its terms. Most of us instinctively believe the claim is a loser: You signed the document, you’re bound by it. But is this actually right? Well, we did some digging. Here is the Arizona law on the subject: Nationwide Resources Corp. v. Massabni, 134 Ariz. 557, 658 P.2d 210 (App. 1982):

“A mistake of only one of the parties to a contract in the expression of his agreement or as to the subject matter does not affect its binding force and ordinarily affords no ground for its avoidance, or for relief, even in equity.” “A manifestation of acceptance to the offeror or his agent forms a contract regardless of the intent of the acceptor.”

Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Bobby Kethcart, Snell & Wilmer
Mr. Kethcart may be contacted at rkethcart@swlaw.com

---