Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Run Spot...Run!

November 18, 2024 — Daniel Lund III - Lexology
"The 'classic' definition of spot zoning is 'the process of singling out a small parcel of land for a use classification totally different from that of the surrounding area for the benefit of the owner of such property and to the detriment of other owners.’ Anderson’s American Law of Zoning, 4th Edition, § 5.12 (1995)” (from plannersweb.com). A wireless carrier rebuffed in Jennings, Louisiana, on an application to rezone residential property to site a monopole cell tower sought relief from the federal court for the Western District of Louisiana. The city lacked any wireless tower provisions in its ordinances, and the carrier asserted that existing “commercial property within the appropriate range” was unavailable. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Daniel Lund III, Phelps
Mr. Lund may be contacted at daniel.lund@phelps.com

Massachusetts District Court Holds Contractors Are Not Additional Insureds on Developer’s Builder’s Risk Policy

August 31, 2020 — Gus Sara - The Subrogation Strategist
In Factory Mut. Ins. Co. v. Skanska United States Bldg., No. 18-cv-11700-DLC, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95403 (Skanska), the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts considered whether contractors on a construction job were additional insureds on the developer’s builder’s risk insurance policy. After a water loss occurred during construction, the builder’s risk insurance carrier paid its named insured for the resultant damage, and subsequently filed a subrogation action against two contractors. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, claiming that the anti-subrogation rule barred the carrier from subrogating against them because they were additional insureds on the policy. The court found that based on the particular language of the additional insured provision in the policy, the defendants were not additional insureds for purposes of the subrogation action. Skanska arose from property damage that occurred during a construction project where Novartis Corporation (Novartis) endeavored to construct a biomedical research building in Cambridge, Massachusetts and retained Skanska USA Building, Inc. (Skanska) as the general contractor. In turn, Skanksa hired J.C. Cannistraro, LLC (JCC) as a subcontractor. Novartis secured a builder’s risk insurance policy from Factory Mutual Insurance Company (Factory Mutual). The policy defined “Insured” as Novartis and its subsidiaries, partnerships and joint ventures that it controlled or owned. The policy included another provision, titled “Property Damage,” which stated that the policy “insures the interest of contractors and subcontractors in insured property… to the extent of the Insured’s legal liability for insured physical loss or damage to such property.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Gus Sara, White and Williams
Mr. Sara may be contacted at sarag@whiteandwilliams.com

Towards Paperless Construction: PaperLight

June 02, 2016 — Aarni Heiskanen – AEC Business
I just toured the newly built headquarters of a financial corporation. Our guide, a M&A specialist, boasted that they have completely removed paper from their offices. Could paperless construction become feasible any time soon? PaperLight is a portable smart board that could replace paper drawings on many occasions. Rollout, Inc., the developer of PaperLight, says that 90% of contractors still use paper plans. AEC firms spend, on average, $1600 per employee on printing annually. Over 37 million construction drawings are printed every year. Finding a usable solution that reduces these numbers makes economic sense. Even more so if you consider all the costs of errors that result from using outdated paper drawings. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aarni@aepartners.fi

A Court-Side Seat: Flint Failures, Missed Deadlines, Toad Work and a Game of Chicken

October 05, 2020 — Anthony B. Cavender - Gravel2Gavel
The last few weeks have yielded a number of interesting developments in the Federal courts. FEDERAL COURTS OF APPEAL In re Flint Water Cases Several local and State of Michigan officials, including the former governor, requested dismissal from the civil litigation seeking damages for the massive failure of Flint, Michigan’s public drinking water system. On August 5, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed that the plaintiffs, residents of Flint, have successfully pled a case that the conduct of the defendants so “shocked the conscience” that a claim for a violation of their substantive due process rights was appropriately alleged. The defendants, including the former governor, argued that they were entitled to a qualified immunity defense. The court rejected this argument on the basis of the earlier decisions made by the court in this matter. Judge Sutton concurred because he was bound by this precedent, but remarked that the evidence for the governor’s culpability was very thin; he was not intimately connected to the extraordinary error in judgment. The majority was very upset with this concurrence as indicted by their own opinion. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Anthony B. Cavender, Pillsbury
Mr. Cavender may be contacted at anthony.cavender@pillsburylaw.com

AI – A Designer’s Assistant or a Replacement?

November 28, 2022 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
Over the last few months, we’ve seen an online explosion of AI-powered text and image generators. Many non-designers welcome these tools as a way to express themselves and create results that would have taken professionals days to complete. The obvious question is, should designers start feeling scared? Interior designs from a photo you upload In Business of Home, Fred Nicolaus writes about how he tested with an L.A. designer Shaun Crha an online tool called Interior AI. They uploaded pictures of empty rooms, selected basic prompts (“midcentury modern bathroom,” for example), and watched the machine go. After tweaking the tool settings, they started getting impressive results. Launched in September 2022, Interior AI is the creation of Pieter Levels, a programmer. He built the site in five days by connecting it to a commercially available AI engine called Stable Diffusion. It has been trained with images from Pinterest and other photo sources. 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

Sales of New U.S. Homes Fell in February to Five-Month Low

March 26, 2014 — Shobhana Chandra – Bloomberg
Purchases of new homes in the U.S. fell in February to the lowest level in five months, a sign the industry may take time to pick up after inclement weather damped demand earlier in the year. Sales declined 3.3 percent to a 440,000 annualized pace, following a 455,000 rate in the prior month that was the strongest in a year, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 77 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 445,000. Unusually frigid temperatures added to restraints including rising mortgage rates, higher property values, and a lack of supply that kept prospective buyers away from the market for new and existing properties. Bigger gains in employment and consumer sentiment would help spur the recovery in homebuilding, sustaining its contribution to economic growth and boosting earnings at companies such as Lennar Corp. and KB Home. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Shobhana Chandra, Bloomberg
Ms. Chandra may be contacted at schandra1@bloomberg.net

Protect Workers From Falls: A Leading Cause of Death

August 14, 2018 — Mark McGhiey - Construction Executive
One of the leading causes of death for construction workers is falls from elevated surfaces, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2016, these accidents accounted for more than 30 percent of all construction fatalities. The top four causes of worker deaths (excluding highway collisions) in the private sector construction industry are:

falls: 384 (38.7%);
struck by object: 93 (9.4 percent);
electrocutions: 82 (8.3 percent); and
caught-in/between:1 72 (7.3 percent).

One of the most common — and costly — causes of claims occur when construction workers fall from elevated surfaces. These accidents represent more than 30 percent of all construction claim payments. Reprinted courtesy of Mark McGhiey, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the court decision
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Balfour in Talks With Carillion About $5 Billion Merger

July 30, 2014 — Simon Thiel and Alex Webb – Bloomberg
Balfour Beatty Plc (BBY), the U.K. construction company whose chief quit in May after predicting a profit drop, is in merger talks with rival Carillion Plc (CLLN) to form the country’s biggest builder with a market valuation of about 3 billion pounds ($5 billion). A deal would create a market-leading service and construction business able to serve more clients and cut costs, the builders said in a statement yesterday, adding that they’re trying to develop a strategy and business plan. Balfour and Carillion surged as much as 13 percent and 14 percent respectively in London trading today. Balfour, based in London, has struggled since the global recession, with a lack of building work in the U.K. and the cancellation of projects across Australia, where the company cut hundreds of jobs last year. A merged company would benefit from Carillion’s booming services business as the Wolverhampton, England-based builder expands its maintenance offerings for the rail, oil and telecommunication industries. Mr. Thiel may be contacted at sthiel1@bloomberg.net; Mr. Webb may be contacted at awebb25@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Simon Thiel and Alex Webb, Bloomberg

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