Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Construction Contractor “Mean Tweets” Edition

June 04, 2024 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Back in the day, if someone had a problem with you the rules of school yard jungle dictated that they had better tell it to your face or you had the right to call them out on it. That, of course, was back then. These days, with social media seemingly everywhere (e.g., Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), if someone has a problem with you they tell you . . . as well as the rest of the world . . . to your digital face. Jimmy Kimmel has even made it a “thing” with his celebrity “Mean Tweets” segments. In Paglia & Associates Construction, Inc. v. Hamilton, 98 Cal.App.5th 318 (2023), homeowner Vanessa Hamilton was sued by her contractor Paglia & Associates Construction, Inc. doing business as Protech Construction after she posted critical comments to her blog and on Yelp about work performed by Paglia at her home. The Paglia Case In or about 2016, after a tree fell on her house, Hamilton’s insurer, Safeco, recommended Paglia to perform the repairs. Paglia and Hamilton entered into a repair contract in 2016 but Paglia did not finish the work until sometime in 2017 claiming that the repair was extensive because Hamilton’s circa 1923 home was in poor condition and current building codes required extensive reconstruction. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

Equal Access to Justice Act Fee Request Rejected in Flood Case

January 06, 2020 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The insured's claim for fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) for seeking coverage under a flood policy was rejected. Hampson v. Wright Nat'l Flood Ins. Co., No. 4:19-cv-10083-KMM (S.D. Fla. Aug. 11, 2019)(Order on Motion to Dismiss). The order is here. The insurer did not compensate plaintiff for flood-related damages under the terms of a Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP). The insurer was a Write-Your-Own (WYO) Program insurance carrier participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). By statute, a WYO carrier acts as a "fiscal agent" and "fiduciary" of the United States. The insured's property suffered damage from a hurricane. The insured sued the carrier for breach of contract and attorney's fees under EAJA. The insurer moved to dismiss the claim for fees under EAJA. A party could recover fees and costs under the EAJA as the prevailing party in a case "brought by or against the United States . . . unless the court finds the position of the United States was substantially justified." 28 U.S.C. 2412 (d) (1) (A), (b). The statute defined the "United States" to include "any agency and any official of the United States acting in his or her official capacity." However, attorney's fees were not recoverable under the EAJA in cases for breach of an SFIP brought against a WYO program insurance carrier participating in the NFIP because WYO carriers were not considered "agencies" under the EAJA. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.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
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

Boyfriend Pleads Guilty in Las Vegas Construction Defect Scam Suicide

November 07, 2012 — CDJ STAFF
One of the odder twists of the Las Vegas construction defect scandal was the charge that Nancy Quon’s boyfriend helped her in an initial suicide attempt. Quon, implicated by not charged in the case of taking control of homeowner boards in order to profit from construction defect settlements. William Webb was alleged to have bought the drug GBH in order to allow Quon, his girlfriend, to commit suicide. Ms. Quon later overdosed on a combination of alcohol and prescription drugs. In addition to pleading guilty to the drug charges, Webb also made a plea bargain with prosecutors in which he did not admit guilt in an insurance fraud charge, but acknowledged that prosecutors would likely be successful at obtaining a conviction. Webb will be sentenced February 7 and is expected to receive a sentence of six years imprisonment. Read the court decision
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How BIM Helps Make Buildings Safer

July 01, 2019 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
There are many uses for building information models that are yet to be discovered. One Finnish team collaborated with a city and fire & rescue authority to explore how BIM would help make buildings safer. “Imagine a fire inspector in a building with an AR headset. He can retrieve data from the building’s digital model and hence get an x-ray view of the pipes and cables behind the lowered ceiling.” That’s a scenario that Timo Lehtoviita pictured when we discussed the experimentation project which he led at Saimia, Saimaa University of Applied Sciences. Saimia, the city of Lappeenranta and their real estate company LATO, and the Rescue Department of South Karelia partnered in 2018 to explore the possibilities of using BIM to make buildings safer. The project, titled “Enhancing building safety using information models,” formed part of the national KIRA-digi built environment digitalization program. 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

Just Because You Record a Mechanic’s Lien Doesn’t Mean You Get Notice of Foreclosure

September 15, 2016 — Christopher G. Hill – Construction Law Musings
As longtime (or new readers for that matter) know, mechanic’s liens are near and dear to my heart here at Construction Law Musings. These powerful tools to collect for your hard work on a construction project are great when prepared and recorded in the very specific fashion required by the Virginia legislature and courts. In most situations, if done properly, a mechanic’s lien gives you some security and priority for your construction claim that you would not have with a simple judgment lien. Despite the power of a properly perfected and enforced mechanic’s lien (and the fact that the end result of a full mechanic’s lien suit that remains unsettled is in fact a foreclosure), a recent case in the Eastern District of Virginia, Weinberg v. J.P. Morgan Chase, et. al., (thanks for the head’s up on this case to the folks at the Construction Payment Blog) held that under Virginia statute mechanic’s lien holders are not entitled to notice of foreclosure. In the Weinberg case, the plaintiff, a pro se lien claimant that recorded two different liens, one pre-foreclosure and one post-foreclosure, and who had not received notice of the intervening foreclosure, argued, among other things, that he should have been given notice of the foreclosure on the deed of trust on the property by J. P. Morgan Chase. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

Panama Weighs Another Canal Expansion at Centennial Mark

August 20, 2014 — Michael McDonald – Bloomberg
A century after the U.S. steamship Ancon first sailed through the Panama Canal, a $5.3 billion expansion delayed by bickering contractors and angry workers is nearing completion. The problem is it might not be big enough. With the expansion 16 months behind schedule, canal administrator Jorge Quijano said officials are studying whether to dig a fourth set of locks to handle a growing fleet of super-sized ships. Those include the 400-meter-long “Triple E” vessels capable of carrying more than 18,000 containers, four times more than current ships passing through the canal. “We are always analyzing the market and as soon as we can economically justify it we will begin,” said Manuel Benitez, deputy administrator of the Panama Canal Authority, adding that he thinks the current expansion is sufficient for now. “If that changes and the demand exists we are ready to begin.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Michael McDonald, Bloomberg
Mr. McDonald may be contacted at mmcdonald87@bloomberg.net

Warranty of Workmanship and Habitability Cannot Be Disclaimed or Waived Under Any Circumstance

May 01, 2023 — Jason Feld & Stephanie Wilson - Kahana & Feld LLP
Arizona residential construction and single-family home production is growing at a rapid pace. And just as fast as the homes are sold, homeowners are constantly seeking warranty repairs from their homebuilders. Despite having strong purchase documents with express warranty language, the Arizona Supreme Court in Zambrano v. M & RC, II LLC, 254 Ariz. 53 (2022) adopted a bright line rule that regardless of the contract, the implied warranty of workmanship and habitability (“implied warranty”) cannot be disclaimed or waived under any circumstance. The Arizona Supreme Court opinion provides clear guidance of the law in this area on the scope of the implied warranty in contracts between homebuyers and builder/vendors, specifically on the issue of whether an express warranty can negate and effectively waive the common law implied warranty – which is a definitive violation of public policy. The Zambrano decision involved a licensed real estate broker who bought a new single family home for herself in a newly constructed master planned community in Surprise, AZ. Zambrano entered into a valid sales contract with Scott Homes (homebuilder) which contained a stand-alone 45-page pre-printed form express warranty. The express warranty was to be the “only warranty applicable to the home.” The contract further clarified that the buyer was expressly disclaiming (and, thus, waiving) the implied warranty. The sales documents and express warranty were signed and authorized by Zambrano. A short time later, the home developed alleged “design and construction defects” that were “either time barred or outside the coverage” of the express warranty. Zambrano filed suit for the alleged defects based on the implied warranty. Scott Homes filed summary judgment based on the Zambrano’s waiver and disclaimer of the implied warranty in the purchase agreement. The trial court granted summary judgment and the matter was appealed up to the Arizona Supreme Court. Reprinted courtesy of Jason Feld, Kahana & Feld LLP and Stephanie Wilson, Kahana & Feld LLP Mr. Feld may be contacted at jfeld@kahanafeld.com Ms. Wilson may be contacted at swilson@kahanafeld.com Read the court decision
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