Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Vinci Will Build $580M Calgary Project To Avoid Epic Flood Repeat

June 20, 2022 — Scott Van Voorhis - Engineering News-Record
Vinci Construction has begun work on a giant flood control project in Alberta designed to prevent a repeat of one of the most devastating natural disasters in Canadian history. Reprinted courtesy of Scott Van Voorhis, Engineering News-Record ENR may be contacted at enr@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Strangers in a Strange Land: Revisiting Arbitration Provisions to Account for Increasing International Influences

July 16, 2023 — William Underwood - ConsensusDocs
Arbitration is nothing new. Neither is globalization. But the two are coming together in ways that have incrementally influenced the manner in which many arbitrations are now conducted. And this merits a re-examination of old arbitration clauses to account for some of these new influences. With that in mind, this article will examine some basic considerations when examining arbitration agreements within a construction industry that continues to see the increasing participation of foreign companies in domestic projects. Although this is not a comprehensive review of best drafting practices, nor is it a full survey of the differences between domestic and international arbitration, this article will nonetheless highlight a few basic concepts to keep in mind when reviewing arbitration clauses. As a basic starting point, the continuing globalization of the construction industry has led to distinct impacts on the ways in which parties conduct arbitrations in the United States. The increased participation of international companies in domestic construction projects has naturally led to the application of international legal concepts to domestic alternative dispute resolution. And the increasing prevalence of these international concepts has led to a number of important trends that can impact the way arbitrations are handled. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of William Underwood, Jones & Walker (ConsensusDocs)
Mr. Underwood may be contacted at wunderwood@joneswalker.com

Ohio “property damage” caused by an “occurrence.”

May 18, 2011 — CDCoverage.com

In JTO, Inc. v. State Automobile Mut. Ins. Co., No. 2010-L-062 (Ohio Ct. App. March 25, 2011), general contractor JTO was sued by hotel project owner Marriott for breach of contract and warranties seeking damages for the repair of construction defects resulting in moisture penetration property damage to interior components. JTO filed a third party complaint against subcontractor Farizel and also tendered its defense as an additional insured under Farizelâ€™s State Auto CGL policy.

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Reprinted courtesy of CDCoverage.com

Census Bureau, HUD Show Declines in Residential Construction

May 17, 2011 â€“ CDJ Staff

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development released their summary of residential construction for April 2011 on May 17.

Building permits for privately owned housing units were down 4% from last month and 12% from last year. Similarly, privately-owned housing starts were down 10% from March and 23% below the previous year.

For further details, read the Census Bureau/HUD report

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Ninth Circuit Finds Policy’s Definition of “Policy Period” Fatal to Insurer’s “Related Claims” Argument

April 10, 2019 — Jason M. Taylor - TLSS Insurance Law Blog
Professional liability policies often include some form of a “related claims” or “related acts” provision stating that if more than one claim results from a single wrongful act, or a series of related wrongful acts, such claims will be treated as a single claim and deemed first made during the policy period in which the earliest claim was made. These provisions can have significant implications on the applicable policy and policy limits, retroactive date issues, and whether such claims were first made and reported during a particular policy period. Recently, the Ninth Circuit issued a stern reminder of how the particular policy language can effect, and in this case thwart, the intended scope of the carrier’s “related claims” provision. In Attorneys Ins. Mut. Risk Retention Grp., Inc. v. Liberty Surplus Ins. Corp., 2019 WL 643442 (9th Cir. Feb. 15, 2019), the Ninth Circuit construed a “related claims” provision included in two consecutive lawyers professional liability policies. During both the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 insurance policy periods, attorney J. Wayne Allen (“Allen”) was insured through his employer by Liberty Surplus Insurance Corporation’s (“Liberty”) professional liability insurance. Third parties filed suit against Allen during the 2009–2010 policy period in a probate case, and a second, related civil suit during the 2010–2011 policy period. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jason M. Taylor, Traub Lieberman
Mr. Taylor may be contacted at jtaylor@tlsslaw.com

Appetite for Deconstruction

July 02, 2024 — Patrick Sisson - Bloomberg
The death of 206 College Avenue was slow and painstaking. Over several days in January 2022, dozens of bundled-up volunteers swarmed over the three-story property, a tired wooden boarding house built in the early 1900s in Ithaca, New York. Long used as rental apartments for Cornell University students, the 13-bedroom house was set to be demolished, along with several neighboring structures of the same vintage, to make room for a new multi-use complex. But while those buildings were quickly reduced to rubble by trackhoes, the house at 206 was deconstructed, piece by piece, so that its elements could be used again. The Catherine Commons Deconstruction Project, an effort by Cornell’s Circular Construction Lab, was a large-scale pilot designed to show how building waste can be kept out of landfills. As volunteers pulled nails out of fir, oak, and walnut boards and hauled lumber off to be sorted and redistributed, a team of eight workers with heavy machinery began meticulously sawing, slicing and removing 8-by-18-foot panels of the old building. These were trucked off to a warehouse, where they’d be taken apart and recycled. The labor that went into this process was substantially more than a typical demolition. But it avoided the societal penalties left behind at nearly every building and demo site across the US. The sheer volume of waste generated by knocking down, adding to or renovating buildings in the US is stunning: 600 million tons of construction demolition waste annually, according to the most recent EPA estimate from 2018. Roughly 75% gets ground up into aggregate and fill, and only a small share is recycled and reused, necessitating production of new material for the next project. For scale, municipal solid waste only accounts for 300 million tons every year. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Patrick Sisson, Bloomberg

Judgment for Insurer Reversed Due to Failure to Establish Depreciation

August 01, 2023 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The trial court erred in placing the burden on the policyholder to establish depreciation in determining the actual cash value of the loss. SFR Serv., LLC v. Tower Hill Prime Ins. Co., 2023 Fla. App. LEXIS 3570 (Fla. Ct. App. May 26, 2023). The insureds' roof was damaged by Hurricane Irma. They submitted their claim to their insurer, Tower Hill. The cost of repair was assessed at $7,726.94, below the amount of the deductible. Therefore, there was no recovery under the policy. The insureds assigned their claim to SFR Services, LLC, their roofing contractor. SFR submitted a claim to Tower Hill for $162,083.84. Tower Hill refused to pay and SFR sued. 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

Construction Defects Lead to Demolition

May 26, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

Ten years after it was built, demolition of Seattle’s McGuire Building has begun, as Jeanne Lang Jones reports in the Puget Sound Business Journal. Construction defects had rendered the 25-story apartment building uninhabitable. The major problem was corroded steel cabling. According to the report, “the building’s owners reached an undisclosed settlement last year with St. Louis-based contractor McCarthy Building Companies.”

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Compliance with Building Code Included in Property Damage

February 07, 2018 — Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law Hawaii

A Circuit Court in Florida issued a final judgment determining that the insured's obligation to comply with building code provisions was included in the property damage experienced. Pin-Pon Corp. v. Landmark, Am. Ins. Co., No. 312009CA012244 (Fla. Cir. Ct. Dec. 28, 2017). The decision is here.

At trial, the plaintiff's architect testified that the total pricing for the code upgrades was $6.2 million. On appeal, the appellate court ruled that plaintiff's Exhibit 98, an Upgrade Insurance Claim, was improperly admitted as a business record. The appellate court stated that the jury may have considered Exhibit 98 in determining the amount of code upgrade damages. Therefore, the verdict was reversed and remanded for a trial on the code upgrade damages only.

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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawarii
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

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