SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

South Dakota Supreme Court Holds That Faulty Workmanship Constitutes an “Occurrence”

September 14, 2017 — Samantha Martino - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
The South Dakota Supreme Court recently determined that damage resulting from a subcontractor’s failure to test soil compaction before constructing a home constituted an “accident” and was therefore an “occurrence” under a commercial general liability (CGL) policy. In Owners Ins. Co. v. Tibke Construction, Inc., the homeowners hired Tibke Construction, Inc. to build a new house, and Tibke Construction hired subcontractor Jerry’s Excavating to perform excavation work. The homeowners contended that Jerry’s Excavating failed to do soil compaction testing before commencing construction, which resulted in the home being built on highly expansive soils, leading to damage including excessive settlement, cracking and structural unsoundness. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Samantha Martino, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Ms. Martino may be contacted at smm@sdvlaw.com

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California Contractors – You Should Know That Section 7141.5 May Be Your Golden Ticket

February 18, 2020 — Amy L. Pierce, Mark A. Oertel & John Lubitz - Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP
Under California’s Contractors’ State License Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 7000 et seq., all contractors’ and subcontractors’ licenses expire two years from the last day of the month in which the license issued, or two years from the date on which the renewed license last expired. The Contractors State License Board (CSLB) sends licensees a renewal application 60 to 90 days prior to the date the license is set to expire. Most contractors have various controls in place to make sure that the renewal application is timely filed and the required fee paid. Even so, we are only human and mistakes are made, and a renewal application filing deadline can be missed for a variety of reasons, e.g., the licensee’s mailing address has not been updated on the CSLB’s records, the individual responsible for filing the license renewal is out on leave, there has been a death in the family or a serious health issue, etc. Quoting Robert Burns, even “[t]he best-laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry” (To a Mouse, 1786). General contractors should be cognizant of both their and their subcontractors’ license renewal obligations and deadlines. If a licensee missed timely filing its renewal application, Business & Professions Code Section 7141.5may provide some relief. Section 7141.5 provides that the Registrar of Contractors,

“may grant the retroactive renewal of a license if the licensee requests the retroactive renewal in a petition to the registrar, files an application for renewal on a form prescribed by the registrar, and pays the appropriate renewal fee and delinquency fee prescribed by this chapter. This section shall only apply for a period not to exceed 90 days from the due date and only upon a showing by the contractor that the failure to renew was due to circumstances beyond the control of the licensee.”

Reprinted courtesy of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP attorneys Amy Pierce, Mark Oertel and John Lubitz Ms. Pierce may be contacted at Amy.Pierce@lewisbrisbois.com Mr. Oertel may be contacted at Mark.Oertel@lewisbrisbois.com Mr. Lubitz may be contacted at John.Lubitz@lewisbrisbois.com Read the court decision
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Construction Firms Complain of Missed Payments on Redevelopment Project

December 11, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Firms working on the Quincy Center redevelopment project in the Boston area are claiming that the developer has been slow to pay. Street-Works Development says that Twining Properties, a partner in the development, is in the process of paying off $1.9 million owed to construction companies. The project was put on hold when it was determined that funds were not available to build the initially planned 15-story, steel-framed apartment building as part of a residential, retail, and office complex. The residential portion will now be a 6-story, wood-framed building. One of the contractors has taken the first steps to placing a lien on another property owned by Street-Works. Read the court decision
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Construction Defect Bill Introduced in California

June 10, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

Linda Halderman (R-Fresno) has introduced a bill which would require lawyers soliciting clients for construction defect cases to provide their prospective clients with a statement including that sellers may be required to disclose that they were engaged in a construction lawsuit. Further, the bill would require lawyers to disclose that they cannot guarantee financial recovery.



Halderman was quoted by The Business Journal as saying, “Lawsuit abuse has been very damaging, especially to homeowners in the Valley.” Halderman hopes that her bill will discourage class action lawsuits against builders and that this will protect jobs in the construction industry.



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ASCE Statement on Passing of Senator Dianne Feinstein

October 02, 2023 — Maria Lehman, President – American Society of Civil Engineers
RESTON, Va. – ASCE joins Capitol Hill and the infrastructure community in mourning the loss of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). At 90 years old, Sen. Feinstein was the longest-tenured female senator in U.S. politics and an immensely influential voice in the U.S. Senate and her home state of California. A true pioneer in U.S. politics, Sen. Feinstein was the first female mayor of San Francisco and one of the first women elected to the U.S. Senate from California. During her three decades in the Senate, Sen. Feinstein was a staunch advocate for issues impacting the engineering profession and strongly supported the recent passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Sen. Feinstein was a champion for legislation to mitigate the impacts of climate change, a strong supporter of bills to improve drinking water for disadvantaged communities, and, in recent years, served as ASCE's key champion for both the reauthorization of the National Dam Safety Program and the 21st Century Dams Act. Sen. Feinstein consistently sought middle ground on issues that were pertinent to all Americans, a rare and admirable trait in our increasingly divisive political climate. ASCE will remember Sen. Feinstein for all that she accomplished on behalf of our nation's infrastructure, and we look forward to continuing her fight to ensure our infrastructure systems can withstand the impacts of increasingly severe weather events. Our deepest sympathies go out to her family. ABOUT THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers represents more than 150,000 civil engineers worldwide and is America's oldest national engineering society. ASCE works to raise awareness of the need to maintain and modernize the nation's infrastructure using sustainable and resilient practices, advocates for increasing and optimizing investment in infrastructure, and improve engineering knowledge and competency. For more information, visit www.asce.org or www.infrastructurereportcard.org and follow us on Twitter, @ASCETweets and @ASCEGovRel. Read the court decision
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Pool Contractor’s Assets Frozen over Construction Claims

October 22, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
The State of Florida has frozen the assets of Nationwide Pools over claims of deceptive practices. Nationwide will be allowed to engage in pool construction during the lawsuit. The Florida Attorney General’s office alleges that Nationwide Pools failed to pay subcontractors, misrepresented warranties, and left customers with unfinished pools. The State of Florida is seeking restitution to consumers who did business with Nationwide Pools. Read the court decision
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Nevada Supreme Court Declares Subcontractor Not Required to Provide Pre-Litigation Notice to Supplier

September 24, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to the Traub Lieberman Straus & Shrewsberry LLP blog on Construction Law, even though the Nevada Revised Statutes Annotated (NRS) Chapter 40 requires a general contractor “to provide pre-litigation notice (followed by an opportunity to repair) to a subcontractor or supplier the general contractor believes to be responsible” for the issue prior to filing suit, the Nevada Supreme Court “determined that NRS Chapter 40 imposes no such requirement upon a subcontractor.” In Barrett v. Eighth Judicial District Court, “the court reasoned that ‘while the statutes’ and, indeed, chapter’s purpose is, in part, to allow defendants an initial opportunity to repair, the Legislature chose to carry out that purpose in the manner provided by the statutes, and [the Supreme Court] will not read into the statutes a notice requirement between a subcontractor and another subcontractor or supplier where none exist.’” Read the court decision
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Florida Adopts Daubert Standard for Expert Testimony

October 07, 2019 — Michael L. DeBona - The Subrogation Strategist
Seven months ago, the Florida Supreme Court declined to adopt Daubert as the standard for admitting expert testimony in Florida state courts. In DeLisle v. Crane Co., 258 So. 3d 1219 (2018), the court reaffirmed that “Frye, not Daubert, is the appropriate test in Florida.” On May 23, 2019, however, Florida’s high court did an about-face. In In Re: Amendment to the Florida Evidence Code, No. SC19-107, the Florida Supreme Court overruled its decision in DeLisle and declared that Florida will now apply the Daubert standard to determine whether scientific evidence is admissible. The Daubert standard comes from the case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), which held that the longstanding Frye test[1] for admitting expert testimony was superseded by Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Daubert instructed that federal judges should act as “gatekeepers” to ensure expert testimony is rooted in scientifically valid principles and that those principles are properly applied to the facts at issue. In determining whether scientific evidence should be admitted, Daubert sets forth several factors to consider: the testability of the theory or technique; the peer review and publication of the theory or technique; the error rate for the technique; the standards controlling the technique’s operation; and the general acceptance of the theory or technique.[2] The Daubert standard is generally considered a more onerous test than Frye, precluding expert testimony that might otherwise go to the jury under Frye.[3] Whereas Frye is a single factor test that applies only to new or novel science, Daubert is a multifactor test that applies to all expert testimony. Since Daubert, a growing number of states have moved away from the Frye test in favor of the Daubert standard; it is now followed by a majority of jurisdictions in the country. In 2013, the Florida State legislature attempted to move Florida in this direction by amending the Florida Evidence Code to codify the Daubert standard. But because the Florida Supreme Court is vested with the power to make procedural rules and it was unclear whether the Daubert standard was a procedural or substantive rule, it was uncertain whether the 2013 Daubert amendments were controlling law. Then in 2017, in In Re: Amendment to the Florida Evidence Code, No. SC16-181, the Florida Supreme Court expressly declined adopting the Daubert amendments to the extent they were procedural. This decision signaled that, if faced with the Daubert standard on appeal from a litigated case, the Florida Supreme Court would reaffirm that Frye – not Daubert – controlled the admissibility of expert testimony in Florida state courts. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Michael L. DeBona, White and Williams LLP
Mr. DeBona may be contacted at debonam@whiteandwilliams.com

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