Doing Construction Lead Programs the Right Way
October 16, 2018 —
Natalie Craigmile - Construction InformerRunning a construction business takes hard work. When you are working on a job, it can be difficult to find time to spend on marketing and advertising. If you are short on time, buying leads through construction lead programs could be a good way to meet new customers, grow your business, and find your next job. Keep reading to learn more about some of the pros and cons of buying leads.
A construction lead generation service exists solely to connect home owners with local home improvement contractors. They market across different construction specialties and reach customers who are looking for construction companies. Once they capture the ‘lead’, which is essentially the contact information and a few project details of that potential customer, they sell the lead to one or more local contractors in their network.
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Natalie Craigmile, Construction Informer
Towards Paperless Construction: PaperLight
June 02, 2016 —
Aarni Heiskanen – AEC BusinessI 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 Even more so if you consider all the costs of errors that result from using outdated paper drawings.
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Aarni Heiskanen, AEC BusinessMr. Heiskanen may be contacted at
aarni@aepartners.fi
Construction Manager’s Win in Michigan after Michigan Supreme Court Finds a Subcontractor’s Unintended Faulty Work is an ‘Occurrence’ Under CGL
August 03, 2020 —
Gabrielle Szlachta-McGinn - Newmeyer DillionOn June 29, 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court overturned a longstanding precedent that commercial general liability (“CGL”) insurers have historically relied upon to deny insurance coverage for claims involving pre-1986 CGL policies. See Hawkeye-Security Ins. Co. v. Vector Const. Co., 185 Mich. App. 369, 372, 460 N.W.2d 329, 331 (1990). In its recent ruling, the state Supreme Court unanimously agreed that an Insurance Services Office, Inc. (“ISO”) 1986 standard CGL policy, which is sold to construction contractors across the United States, provides coverage for property damage to a policyholder’s work product that resulted from a subcontractor’s unintended faulty workmanship. Skanska USA Bldg. Inc. v. M.A.P. Mech. Contractors, Inc., No. 159510, 2020 WL 3527909 (Mich. June 29, 2020).
In 2008, Skanska USA Building, Inc., the construction manager on a renovation project for Mid-Michigan Medical Center, signed a subcontract with defendant M.A.P. Mechanical Contractors (“MAP”) to install a new heating and cooling (“HVAC”) system. Id. During the renovation, MAP installed some of the expansion joints in the new HVAC system backwards. Id. The defective installation caused approximately $1.4 million in property damage to concrete, steel and the heating system, which Skanska discovered nearly two years after MAP completed the project. Id. After performing the repairs and replacing the damaged property, Skanska sought repayment for the repair costs from MAP and also submitted a claim to Amerisure seeking coverage as an insured under the CGL policy. Id. When Amerisure rejected Skanska’s claim, Skanska sued both parties. Id. Amerisure relied on the holding in Hawkeye and argued that MAP’s defective workmanship was not a covered “occurrence” under the CGL policy, which the policy defined as an accident. Id. at *4.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ignored the express language contained in the CGL policy and applied a prior appellate court precedent from Hawkeye, finding that MAP’s faulty work was not an “occurrence” and thus, did not trigger CGL coverage. Id. at *4. The Court of Appeals further reasoned that Skanska was an Amerisure policyholder and that the only property damage was to Skanska’s own work, which was not covered under the CGL policy. Id. at *5.
In a landmark decision, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed, holding unanimously that the Court of Appeals incorrectly applied the holding of Hawkeye because it failed to consider the impact of the 1986 revisions to standard CGL insurance policies. Id. at *10. Chief Justice Bridget M. McCormack explained that the Hawkeye decision rested on the 1973 version of the ISO form insurance policy, which specifically excluded certain business risks from coverage such as property damage to a policyholder’s own work. Id. The Supreme Court agreed that while Hawkeye was correctly decided, it did not apply here because the 1986 revised ISO policy includes an exception for property damage caused by a subcontractor’s unintentional faulty work. Id.
The Supreme Court said that under the plain reading of the current CGL policy language, an “accident” could include a subcontractor’s unintentional defective work that damaged a policyholder’s work product and thus, may qualify as an “occurrence” covered under the policy. Id. at *9. The Supreme Court defined an “accident” (which was not defined in the Amerisure policy) as “an undefined contingency, a casualty, a happening by chance, something out of the usual course of things, unusual, fortuitous, not anticipated, and not naturally to be expected.” Id. at *5; see Allstate Ins. Co. v. McCarn, 466 Mich. 277, 281, 645 N.W.2d 20, 23 (2002). The Supreme Court noted that there was no evidence suggesting that MAP purposefully installed the expansion joints backwards, nor was there evidence indicating that the parties affected by MAP’s negligence anticipated, foresaw, or expected MAP’s defective installation or property damage. Skanska, 2020 WL 3527909, at *4. Therefore, the Supreme Court concluded that an “occurrence” may have happened, which would trigger coverage under the CGL policy. Id. at *10.
Although this landmark decision changes Michigan law, the decision is limited to cases involving the 1986 ISO policy language revisions to CGL insurance policies. Id. The Supreme Court's decision does not overturn Hawkeye, but rather limits Hawkeye’s authority to cases involving the 1973 ISO form. Id.
Gabrielle Szlachta-McGinn was a summer associate at Newmeyer Dillion as part of the firm's 2020 summer class. You may learn more about Newmeyer Dillion's construction litigation services and find the group's key contacts at https://www.newmeyerdillion.com/construction-litigation/.
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Governor Brown Signs Legislation Aimed at Curbing ADA Accessibility Abuses in California
June 02, 2016 —
Garret Murai – California Construction Law BlogThis past week Governor Jerry Brown signed
Senate Bill 269. The new law is the latest attempt to curb lawsuits brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) and related states laws which many businesses and governmental entities have called unfair and predatory. Others, have used more
colorful descriptions.
The ADA Debate
At the heart of the debate is a small but growing number of ADA plaintiffs who regularly sue businesses and governmental entities alleging that their properties do not provide equal access to disabled individuals. These ADA plaintiffs and their attorneys, including other members of the disabled community, argue that these lawsuits improve access to places of public accommodation by disabled individuals, are permitted under the law, and that the businesses and government agencies they sue can’t be heard to complain since the ADA has been on the books for over twenty-five years.
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Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLPMr. Murai may be contacted at
gmurai@wendel.com
Effective Strategies for Reinforcing Safety Into Evolving Design Standards
July 02, 2024 —
Ethan Harris - Construction ExecutiveFrom design/build condos to built-to-suit warehouses, one factor remains the highest priority regardless of the project type—the approach to upholding the highest level of safety. Safety exists as a core value across all areas of the construction industry, but the increased risk of serious injuries or fatalities persists. Ranked fourth on the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ list of occupations with the most fatality rates, construction workers put their lives in danger each time they step onto the jobsite.
Considering this risk, it’s important for every team member—from subcontractors to superintendents—to take responsibility for safety compliance, empowering their workforce to take ownership of their own actions and hold others accountable for theirs. To help enhance safety efforts from start to completion, safety leaders are focusing on ways to implement safety standards within each component of a building’s design. Although this approach requires more comprehensive planning and strategizing on the front end, it is intended to reduce and mitigate hazards before they become larger issues. Keeping this idea in mind, here are a few actionable methods for managing projects designed around safety compliance.
ASSESS FIRST
No two jobsites are the same. From crowded pedestrian walkways to dangerous existing infrastructure, each project requires specific layouts, materials and processes to be fully functional both during and after construction. Given the unique nature of each site, a detailed risk assessment must be conducted before any other design and/or building activities begin. During this initial assessment, careful consideration should be placed on the overall flow as it relates to the people, processes and equipment located on or near the construction site.
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Ethan Harris, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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WATCH: 2023 Construction Economic Update and Forecast
January 09, 2023 —
Construction ExecutiveConstruction Executive presented its "2023 Construction Economic Update and Forecast" webinar with
Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu on Dec. 14, sponsored by
Aerotek,
Bluebeam,
CMiC and
Raken.
Basu started by announcing the Federal Reserve’s rate increase of 0.5%, the latest in a series of increases aimed at combating inflation. Calling 2022 a “year of tumult and a year of surprise,” Basu further noted that the Russian invasion of Ukraine surprised many, further disrupting global supply chains and causing a shockwave to ripple through global energy prices.
Citing the U.S. Consumer Price Index, with 7.1% year-over-year inflation in November, Basu believes we’ve “peaked in terms of inflation for this cycle”; while inflation hit higher-than-expected levels throughout 2022, it leveled off at lower-than-expected rates by the end of the year. Basu predicted inflation will continue to be problematic through 2023 as it has shifted from transitory inflation due to supply-chain disruptions in 2020 and 2022 to broader inflation due to the labor market, noting that the worst of the supply-chain issues seem to be over, reaching a high point in late 2021.
Blaming the injection of fiscal stimulus coming from the federal government, monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve and the fact that inflation has now become ingrained in the economy and in people’s expectations, leading to wage and price increases, Basu calls the economy “overheated.”
Reprinted courtesy of
Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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Congratulations to BWB&O’s Newport Beach Team for Prevailing on a Highly Contested Motion to Quash!
January 08, 2024 —
Dolores Montoya - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLPCongratulations to Newport Partners Tyler Offenhauser and Jonathan Cothran, and Associate Anisha Kohli, who recently prevailed on behalf of BWB&O’s client before the Orange County Superior Court on a highly contested Motion to Quash Service based on Plaintiff’s failure to timely file and serve a DOE Amendment, naming our client.
BWB&O’s client was the owner of a building where Plaintiff, a licensed electrician, was electrocuted while performing an upgrade to the building’s electrical infrastructure. Plaintiff’s original lawsuit named only the building’s tenant, who was also represented by BWB&O. BWB&O was successful earlier this year on a Motion for Summary Judgment under the Privette Doctrine and won judgment on behalf of the client/tenant. While that MSJ was pending, Plaintiff surreptitiously added the building’s owner to the suit with a DOE Amendment, after several months earlier learning the owner and then tenant were entities operated by the same individual. However, Plaintiff never informed counsel or any other party of the filing. Moreover, after the MSJ was granted, Plaintiff then waited several more months to serve the building’s owner.
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Dolores Montoya, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
The Prompt Payment Rollercoaster
February 23, 2016 —
Garret Murai – California Construction Law BlogThis past year we
wrote about a case involving California’s prompt payment laws and the current state of confusion with the prompt payment statutes which are
scattered throughout the state Code and which are inconsistent in the use of their terminology and, thus importantly, application.
In
United Riggers & Erectors, Inc. v. Coast Iron & Steel Co., California Court of Appeals for the Second District, Case No. B258860 (December 18, 2015), the Court of Appeals for the Second District addressed whether under one of the prompt payment statutes, Civil Code section 8814, a general contractor may withhold retention without being subject to prompt payment penalties if there is a dispute of any kind between the general contractor and the subcontractor, or only when the dispute relates to the retention itself.
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Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLPMr. Murai may be contacted at
gmurai@wendel.com
