Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Federal Court Opinion Has Huge Impact on the Construction Industry

July 06, 2020 — Wally Zimolong - Supplemental Conditions
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia recently issued an opinion that should get the attention of any contractor or subcontractor performing work on a federal funded construction project. In U.S. ex rel IBEW Local 98 v. The Fairfield Company, the federal court held that a contractor on a SEPTA project could be held liable under the False Claims Act for failing to pay its workers under the Davis Bacon Act. The court found that liability was appropriate under the FCA even through the contractor did not knowingly violate the Davis Bacon Act. The court awarded the plaintiff over $1,000,000 in damages and an additional over $1,000,000 in attorneys fees. An Extremely Brief Primer on the FCA A full discussion of the FCA is beyond the realm of this blog post and you could write a book on FCA cases. But in a nutshell, the FCA prohibits a contractor from knowingly submitting a claim for payment to the federal government (or an entity receiving funding from the federal government, like SEPTA) that is false. Importantly, knowingly does not equal actual knowledge of the falsity of the claim. Rather, “reckless disregard of the truth or falsity” of the submission is sufficient. As explained below, this standard played an important role in the court’s decision and should give contractors performing work on federally funded projects pause. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Wally Zimolong, Zimolong LLC
Mr. Zimolong may be contacted at wally@zimolonglaw.com

Do Not Pass Go! Duty to Defend in a Professional Services Agreement (law note)

April 03, 2019 — Melissa Dewey Brumback - Construction Law in North Carolina
Recently a client asked me to review a contract for his Firm. The Owner, who had prepared the draft, had inserted a rather stringent “duty to defend” clause. As I told my client, a duty to defend clause is not a good idea for a couple of reasons. First, if you agree to provide a defense, what that means is that you are footing the bill for the Owner if the Owner is sued by another party. Think about that for a minute. You are paying legal fees for someone else’s legal defense. You may or may not be able to direct the litigation or have a say in who is hired. Can you say open check book? Secondly, and more importantly, the duty to defend is almost never insurable. What that means is that your professional liability carrier will not be footing the bill—your Firm will be doing it. This is not a case of adding the Owner as an additional insured, so do not confuse the two. Agreeing to a duty to defend is an extremely burdensome, and potentially costly, mistake. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Melissa Dewey Brumback, Ragsdale Liggett PLLC
Ms. Brumback may be contacted at mbrumback@rl-law.com

BHA Sponsors the 9th Annual Construction Law Institute

January 21, 2016 — CDJ STAFF
Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc. is proud to be partnering with the Florida Bar Continuing Legal Education Committee and the Construction Law Committee of the Florida Bar Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section, as a sponsor and exhibitor at 9th Annual Construction Law Institute to be held March 11th, 12th & 13th, 2016 at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes in Orlando. With offices in Miami serving all of Florida, Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc. (BHA) offers the experience of over 20 years of service to carriers, defense counsel, and insurance professionals as designated experts in nearly 6,000 cases. BHA’s staff encompasses a broad range of licensed and credentialed experts in the areas of general contracting and specialty trades, as well as architects, and both civil and structural engineers, and has provided services on behalf of developers, general contractors and sub-contractors. BHA’s experience covers the full range of construction defect litigation, including single and multi-family residential (including high-rise), institutional (schools, hospitals and government buildings), commercial, and industrial claims. BHA specializes in coverage, exposure, premises liability, and delay claim analysis as well. As the litigation climate in Florida continues to change, and as the number of construction defect and other construction related cases continues to rise, it is becoming more important for contractors and builders here to be aggressive in preparing for claims before they are made, and in defending against those claims once they are filed. Since 1993, Bert L. Howe & Associates has been an industry leader in providing construction consulting services, and has been a trusted partner with builders and insurance carriers, both large and small, across the Western and Southern United States. Here in Florida, we have been providing construction defect and construction-claims related forensic expert services for the past decade with a proven track record of successful results. For those of you planning on attending the conference, or those who may know someone who will be, we encourage you to stop by the BHA booth and we welcome the opportunity to discuss further the broad range of services provided by BHA. For your convenience, here is a link to the registration page for the 9th Annual Construction Law Institute: http://www.floridabar.org/FBWEB/CLEReg.nsf/zLocations2/MAOS-A4UK4Z?OpenDocument Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of

Making the Construction Dispute Resolution Process More Efficient and Less Expensive, Part 2

July 16, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
John P. Ahler, on the Ahlers & Cressman PLLC blog, has posted the second part of his two-part series on Ways to Make the Construction Dispute Resolution Process More Efficient and Less Expensive. In this post, Ahler discussed “tips on how lawyers and stakeholders can make things move quicker in arbitration.” For example, Ahler looked at the arbitration clause in the initial contract, various options for arbitration, evidence decisions, and others. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of

Housing Starts in U.S. Climb to an Almost Eight-Year High

August 19, 2015 — Sho Chandra – Bloomberg
New-home construction in the U.S. climbed in July to the highest level in almost eight years, indicating the industry will pick up in the second half of the year. Residential starts rose 0.2 percent to a 1.21 million annualized rate, the most since October 2007, from a 1.2 million pace in the prior month that was higher than previously estimated, a Commerce Department report showed Tuesday in Washington. The median forecast of 77 economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 1.18 million. A drop in permits, a proxy for future construction, signals additional gains will take time to develop. Rising employment and historically low mortgage rates are enticing buyers, while increasing prices induced by a lack of homes on the market is an incentive to start new developments. Data showing builder sentiment at a decade high in August underscores the view that the housing rebound will stay on track even as the Federal Reserve is poised to boost borrowing costs. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Sho Chandra, Bloomberg

Flushing Away Liability: What the Aqua Engineering Case Means for Contractors and Subcontractors

October 21, 2024 — Heather Zipperer - Colorado Construction Litigation Blog
The recent Town of Mancos v. Aqua Engineering case is an insightful example of how well written contracts and timely legal action can make all the difference in resolving disputes between municipalities, general contractors, and subcontractors. The ruling favored Aqua Engineering; a subcontractor that played a role in a wastewater treatment facility project gone wrong. The court’s decision highlighted key legal principles, including the economic loss rule and the importance of well-structured contracts in construction disputes. Whether you are a subcontractor looking to avoid undue liability or a general contractor seeking to ensure subcontractors shoulder their fair portion of responsibility, this case offers valuable lessons for all parties involved in construction projects. The Background: A Wastewater Project with Issues In 2008, the Town of Mancos, Colorado, hired Souder, Miller & Associates (“SMA”) to design a new wastewater treatment facility. SMA subcontracted Aqua Engineering to help implement a specific wastewater treatment system known as the Multi-Stage Activated Biological Process (“MSABP”). However, after construction, the facility never worked as expected. For years, the Town faced ongoing issues, and despite Aqua’s involvement in attempts to fix the problems, the facility remained dysfunctional. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC

A Murder in Honduras Reveals the Dark Side of Clean Energy

October 12, 2020 — Monte Reel - Bloomberg
Berta Cáceres campaigned to stop a renewable energy project, and the long fight turned her into one of Central America’s most prominent environmentalists. She won a prestigious international prize known as the “Green Nobel” for protecting a river, using some of the award money to purchase a modest bungalow in La Esperanza, her hometown in central Honduras. Her activism is also what brought three gunmen to her back door. The men broke into her kitchen around 11:30 p.m. on March 2, 2016. Cáceres heard a noise and called out from her bedroom: “Who’s out there?” Within seconds, a gunman entered her room and shot her dead. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Monte Reel, Bloomberg

Anatomy of a Construction Dispute- An Alternative

February 05, 2015 — Christopher G. Hill – Construction Law Musings
Over the past three weeks, I’ve discussed three “stages” of a construction dispute from the claim, to how to increase the pressure for payment, to the litigation. While these three steps are all too often necessary tools in your construction collection arsenal, they are expensive and time consuming. No well run construction business can or should budget for litigation. The better practice would be to engage a construction attorney early in the process and avoid the dispute altogether if possible. Unfortunately, even the best of planning can lead to the need to hire a construction lawyer for the less pleasant task of assisting you in getting paid. This post is about an alternative to the scorched earth of stage 3 of the process that can and should be at least considered either before or after the complaint or demand for arbitration has been filed. I am of course speaking about voluntary mediation. Why did I emphasize “voluntary?” Because to me mandatory mediation (as required in many construction contracts) is a bit like forced volunteerism, it is something that the parties will go through to “check a box” but will not have their hearts in it. Remember, by the time the mandatory mediation clause kicks in, the parties are likely at an impasse in their construction dispute and are ready to fight. Being forced to mediate, especially from the party seeking payment, can (and in my experience often does) make the parties just go through the motions at best and be hostile to the process at worst. Neither of these attitudes are conducive to resolving a dispute. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Christopher G. Hill, Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, PC
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES