Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

CSLB Reminds California Public Works Contractors to Renew Their Public Works Registration

October 02, 2015 — Garret Murai – California Construction Law Blog
A friendly reminder from the Contractors State License Board . . . CSLB Urges Public Works Contractors to Renew Dept. of Industrial Relations Registration before October 1 to Avoid Hefty Penalty SACRAMENTO — A mandatory renewal deadline is approaching for licensees who work on public works projects. Contractors whose registration with the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) expired June 30, 2015, and have ongoing public works projects or plan to bid on new ones, must pay the $300 renewal fee before October 1, 2015, or face an additional $2,000 late penalty after that date. As a result of Senate Bill (SB) 854, all contractors have been required since April 1, 2015, to register with DIR to be awarded a public works contract, even if the project did not go out to bid. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@wendel.com

Washington State Updates the Contractor Registration Statute

June 17, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Ryan W. Sternoff of Ahlers & Cressman PLLC, analyzed SHB 1749, which recently amended RCW 18.27.010, Washington State’s legislature’s contractor’s registration statute. According to Sternoff, “a broad reading of the contractor’s registration statute, RCW Ch. 18.27, would require just about any person or entity, other than a residential homeowner, who is involved at any level in improving real property to be registered as a ‘Contractor,’ irrespective if that person or entity hired a licensed contractor to perform work on real property that they own.” SHB 1749 amended the statute “so that those who ‘offer to sell their property without occupying or using the structures, projects, developments or improvements’ are excluded from the definition of ‘contractor’ and not required to be registered, provided that the person or entity ‘contracts with a registered general contractor and does not superintend the work.’” Read the court decision
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Tips for Contractors Who Want to Help Rebuild After the California Wildfires

November 02, 2017 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
I received a call from one of my contractor clients this past week to see what he could do to help those affected by California’s North Bay fires. The North Bay fires are the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California’s history. To date, the fires have claimed 42 lives, burned more than 200,000 acres of land, destroyed an estimated 8,400 structures and likely damaged tens of thousands more. By comparison, the state’s second most deadly wildfire, the Oakland Hills fire of 1991, claimed the lives of 25 people, burned 1,600 acres of land, and destroyed 2,900 structures. Rebuilding costs for the North Bay fires, according to the California Insurance Commissioner, are expected to top $1 billion. For those with insurance, insurance experts say that the rebuilding process can take two years or more for those whose homes and businesses were destroyed. For those whose homes and businesses were fortunate enough only to be damaged, rebuilding efforts are already underway. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@wendel.com

60-Mile-Long Drone Inspection Flight Points to the Future

January 15, 2019 — Tom Sawyer - Engineering News-Record
Black & Veatch announced in December the successful conclusion of a 60-mile-log, non-stop, proof-of-concept drone-based inspection flight conducted by a remote pilot in a command center miles away in rural Illinois. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tom Sawyer, ENR
Mr. Sawyer may be contacted at sawyert@enr.com

Want More Transit (and Federal Funding)? Build Housing That Supports It

January 08, 2024 — M. Nolan Gray - Bloomberg
After decades of planning (and $2.1 billion spent), Los Angeles’ newest light rail line opened in October 2022. Joined by geeky rail obsessives and chaperoned children, I rode the K Line on opening day. A blend of underground, elevated and at-grade track, it’s a route only a politician could love. Stations were lavished with public art, and when the train wasn’t stuck in traffic, it glided through the sprawl. Yet one year later, it is Los Angeles’ least-used line, averaging just over 2,000 riders on an average weekday this fall. It isn’t hard to see why: The line begins at a vacant patch in Crenshaw and ends in a low-slung industrial park about six miles away, lined by strip malls the entire way. Walk one block east or west from any given station, and you’ll find yourself amid single-story postwar bungalows on 7,500-square-foot lots — all illegal to redevelop into apartments, thanks to local zoning. The Hyde Park Station deposits riders into a cluster of gas stations and drive-thru fast-food joints. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of M. Nolan Gray, Bloomberg

Contractual “Pay if Paid” and “Pay when Paid” Clauses? What is a California Construction Subcontractor to Do?

November 29, 2021 — William L. Porter - Porter Law Group
The Situation California Construction Subcontractors Face in Obtaining Payment: California construction subcontractors find themselves faced with a significant payment issue every time they are asked to sign a subcontract on a major project. Invariably, the subcontract the prime contractor presents to the subcontractor for signature will contain a clause by which the prime contractor imposes a condition on payment from the prime contractor to the subcontractor. The condition will be either one or the other of two general types. Either the prime contractor will specify that it never has to pay the subcontractor if the prime contractor itself is not paid by the owner (a “pay-if-paid” clause), or the prime contractor will pay the subcontractor only after the prime contractor has first exhausted all its efforts to obtain payment from the owner through litigation, arbitration or otherwise, possibly delaying payment to subcontractors by months or even years (a “pay-when-paid” clause). Goal of the Article: The goal of this article is to draw a distinction between the pay-if-paid and pay-when-paid clauses, discuss the legality of these clauses in California, the problems these clauses create for subcontractors, advise the reader of helpful recent legal developments in this area of law, address the possibility of a further legislative remedy to address the issue, and discuss what the subcontractor might do to protect itself while awaiting a legislative remedy that may or may not ever arrive. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of William L. Porter, Porter Law Group
Mr. Porter may be contacted at bporter@porterlaw.com

In Phoenix, Crews Thread Needle With $730M Broadway Curve Revamp

July 31, 2024 — Scott Blair - Engineering News-Record
Motorists scrambling to dart across three lanes of traffic when merging onto the freeway. Vehicles slowing to a crawl due to extremely curved exit ramps. Commuters enduring agonizing backups as three freeways converge in a tight footprint. Bicyclists and pedestrians sweating through long detours to traverse freeways. Reprinted courtesy of Scott Blair, Engineering News-Record Mr. Blair may be contacted at blairs@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Courts Will Not Rewrite Your Post-Loss Property Insurance Obligations

June 14, 2021 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
In the preceding posting, I wrote about making sure you comply with your property insurance policy’s post-loss policy obligations. By failing to comply, you can render your policy ineffective meaning you are forfeiting otherwise valid insurance coverage, which was the situation discussed in the preceding posting. As an insured, you should never want this to occur! In another case, discussed here, the property insurance policy had a preferred contractor endorsement. This means that instead of paying the insured insurance proceeds, the insurer could perform the repairs with its preferred contractor. Typically, the insured will pay a discount on their premium for this preferred contractor endorsement. The insurer elected to move forward with the repairs based on the preferred contractor endorsement but the insured performed the repairs on his own and then sold the house. By doing this, the appellate court held the insured rendered his policy ineffective by breaching his own policy (and failing to allow this post-loss obligation to take place). The explicit terms of the policy allowed the insurer to perform the repairs instead of paying the insured insurance proceeds. The court could NOT rewrite the post-loss obligations in the policy by requiring the insurer to pay insurance proceeds when the insurer, per the preferred contractor endorsement, elected to perform the repairs. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

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