Cambridge Massachusetts Building Expert Directory

Lower Manhattan Condos Rival Midtown’s Luxury Skyscrapers

April 09, 2014 — Oshrat Carmiel – Bloomberg
Manhattan developer Bill Rudin hadn’t planned to start selling apartments at his Greenwich Village project until the end of this year. He began rethinking that strategy after getting cornered at a cocktail party. “People came up to me and said, ‘We want to buy, we want to buy. When can we buy?’” Rudin said in an interview. He opened a sales office in October for the Greenwich Lane, a complex under construction at the site of the shuttered St. Vincent’s Hospital, after an online sign-up list of would-be buyers for the 200 condominiums drew 1,100 names. More than half of the units at the development, still largely a field of dirt and skeletal towers, have sold at prices averaging $3,500 a square foot, in line with other projects downtown and a new luxury benchmark for the area. While Midtown skyscrapers fringing Central Park are setting sales records and attracting international investors, downtown Manhattan’s new condos are breaking their own price barriers with a focus on local buyers. From the cobblestone streets of Tribeca to the low-rise landmarks of Greenwich Village, builders are accelerating projects with features and costs that rival high-end offerings farther north. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Oshrat Carmiel, Bloomberg
Ms. Carmiel may be contacted at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net

Pennsylvania: When Should Pennsylvania’s New Strict Products Liability Law Apply?

February 05, 2015 — Robert Caplan and Timothy Carroll – White and Williams LLP
Pennsylvania has maintained its own peculiar brand of strict products liability law ever since the Supreme Court decided Azzarello v. Black Bros. Co., Inc.[1] in 1978. Maligned by many as “absurd and unworkable,”[2] if “excessively” orientated towards plaintiffs,[3] Azzarello’s unique approach to the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 402A (1965)[4] has recently been judicially consigned to the dustbin of history. In Tincher v. Omega Flex, Inc.,[5] decided on November 19, 2014, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court expressly overruled Azzarello leaving in its place a new alternative standards approach to proving a Section 402A claim. An injured worker or subrogated insurer[6] must still prove that the seller, whether a manufacturer or a distributor, placed the product on the market in a “defective condition unreasonably dangerous to the consumer.”[7] But now, under Tincher, a plaintiff must use either a “consumer expectation test” or a “risk-utility test” to establish that criterion.[8] Reprinted courtesy of Robert Caplan, White and Williams LLP and Timothy Carroll, White and Williams LLP Mr. Caplan may be contacted at caplanr@whiteandwilliams.com; Mr. Carroll may be contacted at carrollt@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Damages or Injury “Likely to Occur” or “Imminent” May No Longer Trigger Insurance Coverage

January 05, 2017 — Masaki J. Yamada – Ahlers & Cressman PLLC
Washington Courts allow an insurer to determine its duty to defend an insured against a lawsuit based only on the face of the complaint and the limitations of the insurance policy. This is otherwise known as the “eight corners” rule (four corners of the complaint plus the four corners of the policy). In other words, the insurance company is not permitted to rely on facts extrinsic to the complaint in order to deny its duty to defend an insured. See Truck Ins. Exch. v. VanPort Homes, Inc., 147 Wn.2d 751, 763 (2002). The laws in Washington provide greater protection to the insured over the insurer when it comes to the insurer’s duty to defend. The duty to defend a claim is triggered if a claim could “conceivably” be covered under the policy. See Woo v. Fireman’s Insurance, 161 Wn.2d 43 (2007). If there is any ambiguity in a policy with regard to coverage, the ambiguity is interpreted in favor of the insured. As a result, contractors in Washington regularly tender claims or potential claims to their insurers even when damage has not occurred but will occur in the imminent future. Especially in the context of construction defect cases, a contractor will tender such a claim to its insurer to trigger the broad duty of the insurer to provide a defense. We also regularly recommend this to our contractor clients. For example, if a building owner serves a contractor with a claim that the construction and installation of a window system will imminently cause leaks and corrosion, we would recommend that the contractor tender the claim to its commercial general liability insurer. Washington courts have found a duty to defend when there are allegations in the complaint that covered damages will occur in the imminent future. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Masaki J. Yamada, Ahlers & Cressman PLLC
Mr. Yamada may be contacted at myamada@ac-lawyers.com

Court of Appeal Puts the “Equity” in Equitable Subrogation

October 05, 2020 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Subrogation as a concept is well understood in insurance circles. According to the Institute of Risk Management Institute’s glossary of insurance terms subrogation is “the assignment to an insurer by the terms of [a] policy or by law, after payment of a loss, of the rights fo the insured to recover the amount of the loss from one legally liable for it.” In other words, if an insurer comes out of pocket for something someone else broke, the insurer can turn to that responsible party for reimbursement of its out of pocket costs. Typically, subrogation is, as stated in IRMI’s glossary of insurance terms, a matter of contract and the rights and responsibilities of parties are set forth within the terms of a policy. However, subrogation may, as stated in IRMI’s glossary, also be matter of law. And this is where equitable subrogation comes in. “Equitable subrogation,” according to IRMI, is “the right of subrogation granted under common law when one party has made a payment on behalf of another and becomes entitled to whatever recovery rights the other party has against a responsible third party.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

Balcony Collapses Killing Six People

June 17, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Six college students died from injuries that occurred when a balcony collapsed at a downtown apartment complex in Berkeley, California, according to Berkeleyside. The city of Berkeley ordered a structural inspection of the remaining balconies at Library Gardens, and to immediately remove the failed balcony. The following day Berkeleyside reported that the city ordered the Library Gardens’ owners to remove another balcony after “[i]nspectors determined that the third-floor balcony ‘was structurally unsafe and presented a collapse hazard endangering public safety.’” Berkeley’s mayor, Tom Bates, stated that “investigators believe the wood wasn’t sealed properly at the time of construction and was damaged by moisture as a result,” the Wall Street Journal reported. Read the full story, 6/16/15 Berkeleyside article... Read the full story, 6/17/15 Berkeleyside article... Read the full story, Wall Street Journal... Read the court decision
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Brazil's Detained Industry Captain Says No Plea Deals Coming

September 03, 2015 — Sabrina Valle & Yasmine Batista – Bloomberg
Marcelo Odebrecht, the most prominent executive who has been detained in Brazil’s largest corruption scandal, said he sees no reason to strike a plea bargain with authorities because he has nothing to reveal. Odebrecht said in a congressional hearing Tuesday that he probably discussed with President Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva the relationship between Odebrecht SA and Petrobras, the state-controlled oil producer at the center of the kickback investigation. It was a natural topic given the economic importance of his construction and engineering empire, he said. He declined to answer questions related to the criminal case, saying it is ongoing and he is unaware of the full extent of the accusations. Reprinted courtesy of Sabrina Valle, Bloomberg and Yasmine Batista, Bloomberg Read the court decision
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Connecticut Court Finds Anti-Concurrent Causation Clause Enforceable

March 19, 2015 — Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law Hawaii
Canvassing both case law and scholarly authority, the court determined that the anti-concurrent cause (ACC) provision barred coverage for loss caused by Tropical Storm Irene. Lombardi v. Universal N. Am Ins. Co., 2015 Conn. Super. LEXIS 138 (Conn. Super. Ct. Jan. 21, 2015). Tropical Storm Irene caused the insured's home to shift and move from its concrete pier foundation. The house later had to be demolished. The insurer's expert concluded that the house was removed from the foundation by storm surge and not by wind. The damage caused by wind was limited to 24 feet of trim missing from the roof and about 70 square feet of shingles that were blown away. The insured's expert concluded the house was removed from its foundation due to a combination of wind and water forces. The insured's expert reported that "the water wave action most probably caused most damage to the dwelling support pilings, with wind conditions contributing to the wave action." Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawaii
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

Remote Trials Can Control Prejudgment Risk

September 07, 2020 — Robert G. Devine, Victor J. Zarrilli & Kimberly M. Collins - White and Williams LLP
While courts across the country are largely unavailable to litigants demanding a jury trial, pre-judgment interest rules present an increasing penalty risk to a defendant wanting its day in court and may not always make a plaintiff whole. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the manner in which people and industries operate across the board. In light of the need to maintain social distancing whenever possible, the use of technology to replace in-person appearances is becoming more commonplace. As more attorneys become comfortable with the remote platform, the willingness to consider a remote trial grows. With in-person jury trials suspended until further notice, it is important for attorneys and parties to consider the attendant consequences of the indefinite delay in waiting for a traditional jury trial. Aside from general inconvenience, continued delays may have a substantial financial impact, particularly with regard to the accumulation of pre-judgment interest. Reprinted courtesy of White and Williams LLP attorneys Robert G. Devine, Victor J. Zarrilli and Kimberly M. Collins Mr. Devine may be contacted at deviner@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Zarrilli may be contacted at zarrilliv@whiteandwilliams.com Ms. Collins may be contacted at collinsk@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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