Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Pending Sales of U.S. Existing Homes Increase 0.8% in November

January 07, 2015 — Michelle Jamrisko – Bloomberg
Contracts to purchase previously owned homes rose in November as employment gains and low borrowing costs helped bring potential buyers into the market. The pending home sales index advanced 0.8 percent after a revised 1.2 percent decrease in October, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for the index to rise 0.5 percent, with estimates ranging from a decline of 1.5 percent to an advance of 3.5 percent. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Michelle Jamrisko, Bloomberg
Ms. Jamrisko may be contacted at mjamrisko@bloomberg.net

Will the AI Frenzy Continue in 2025?

January 14, 2025 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
In AEC technology, 2024 was undoubtedly the year of AI. Every company seemed to announce its pledge to embrace artificial intelligence in the coming years, not to mention the numerous startups that peppered their pitch decks with promises of bleeding-edge innovation. Tech developers who had been using machine learning before the generative AI boom were delighted. They no longer needed to invest significant resources in convincing the industry of AI’s potential. The mainstream success of generative AI in 2024 created a ripple effect, making AEC firms eager to explore and adopt AI solutions. Many all-digital startups also got a boost from the AI frenzy, even though many significant innovations happened in hardware and material technology that did not rely on AI. 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

Meet BWB&O’s 2025 Best Lawyers in America!

September 09, 2024 — Dolores Montoya - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Bremer Whyte Brown & O’Meara, LLP is proud to announce Partners Nicole Whyte, Keith Bremer, Vik Nagpal, John O’Meara, Sheila Stiles, Patrick Au, and Nicole Schmidt have been selected by their peers for inclusion in the 31st edition of The Best Lawyers in America, and Partner Devin Gifford, and Associates Melissa Youngpeter, Ryan Flanagan, and Alexandria Zeis are included in the fifth edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America. Each person is being recognized for their diligent work in the areas of Family Law, Construction, Commercial, Personal Injury, and Real Estate Litigation. Reprinted courtesy of Dolores Montoya, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Visual Construction Diaries – Interview with Jeff Sassinsky of Fovea Aero

November 30, 2017 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
Jeff Sassinsky, President of Fovea Aero, gave me a live demonstration on Fovea Aero Vision – an app that allows you to a get a fully immersive visual construction diary of your project. The idea for the development of Fovea Aero Vision came from discussions with general contractors, owners, and other construction industry professionals. They were talking about the use of smartphones, particularly phone cameras, in construction. The photos, for example, of a fitting that does not look right end up in a folder on a server or goes back and forth in email messages. “The lack of any structure behind both the collection and the storage and sharing of the photos is hampering their usage,” Jeff said. “We wanted to solve the problem by creating a full record of everything that takes place on a construction site, on a regular basis, sharing it among the stakeholders, and making it super easy to use.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at info@aepartners.fi

California Court of Appeal Vacates $30M Non-Economic Damages Award Due to Failure to Properly Apportion Liability and Attorney Misconduct During Closing Argument

February 08, 2021 — Krsto Mijanovic, Peter A. Dubrawski, Arezoo Jamshidi & Catherine M. Asuncion - Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
On January 20, 2021, the California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division Six (Ventura), in Plascencia v. Deese (B299142), vacated a $30 million non-economic damages award in a highway fatality case because: (1) the award did not properly apportion non-economic damages among everyone at fault in violation of Proposition 51; and (2) the amount of the award appeared to have been influenced by plaintiffs’ counsel’s misconduct and prejudicial remarks during closing argument. In Plascencia, the plaintiffs sued several defendants for the wrongful death of their daughter arising from a highway fatality accident. All the defendants settled or were dismissed before trial except the trucking defendants. The highway fatality was caused when one defendant driver made an illegal U-turn on a highway as she left another defendant’s fruit stand. The plaintiffs’ daughter swerved to avoid the U-turn driver, lost control of her car, and crashed into the back of the trucking defendants’ diesel tractor-trailer. The truck driver had parked the truck on the side of the highway near the fruit stand, which the trucking defendants’ expert conceded fell below the standard of care. Reprinted courtesy of Krsto Mijanovic, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP, Peter A. Dubrawski, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP, Arezoo Jamshidi, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP and Catherine M. Asuncion, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP Mr. Mijanovic may be contacted at kmijanovic@hbblaw.com Mr. Dubrawski may be contacted at pdubrawski@hbblaw.com Ms. Jamshidi may be contacted at ajamshidi@hbblaw.com Ms. Asuncion may be contacted at casuncion@hbblaw.com Read the court decision
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Barratt Said to Suspend Staff as Contract Probe Continues

January 26, 2017 — Jack Sidders - Bloomberg
Barratt Developments Plc suspended at least three more employees within its London business as part of an ongoing probe into potential misconduct in the awarding of contracts, according to two people familiar with the decision. The people asked not to be named because a police investigation is ongoing. The suspensions follow that of London regional managing director Alastair Baird, who was arrested in October. He was released on bail until April, along with a 47-year-old woman, according to a Metropolitan Police spokesman, who was unable to immediately respond to a request for comment. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jack Sidders, Bloomberg
Mr. Sidders may be followed on Twitter @JackSidders

What Buyers Want in a Green Home—and What They Don’t

March 19, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Jennifer Goodman interviewed researcher Suzanne Shelton to find out what buyers want in a green home and what they do not. The questions and answers were published in Big Builder. Shelton has studied “Americans’ thoughts on environmental and energy issues” for the last ten years. Goodman wrote that while the term “high-performance” is often used by “builders and their advisors,” the term doesn’t resonate with buyers. In fact, in last fall’s Energy Pulse study, eighty-four percent of Americans said no when asked “if they could confidently and correctly explain the term ‘high-performance home’ to a friend.” Goodman and Shelton also discussed the best way to market green features. Shelton pointed out that in surveys “energy-efficient home… clobbered ‘green home’ year over year.” Furthermore, she found that “80 percent of prospective home buyers tell us…all other things being equal, energy efficiency would impact their home selection.” Read the court decision
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Timely and Properly Assert Affirmative Defenses and Understand Statutory Conditions Precedent

August 05, 2024 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
A recent case serves as a reminder to TIMELY and PROPERLY assert affirmative defenses and to understand statutory conditions precedent to construction lien claims. Failing to do one or the other could be severely detrimental to the position you want to take in a dispute, whether it is a lien foreclosure dispute, or any other dispute. In Scherf v. Tom Krips Construction, Inc., 2024 WL 3297592 (Fla. 4th DCA 2024), the president of a construction company and his wife were building a residence. They orally accepted the proposal from the concrete shell contractor and asked for invoices to be submitted to the president’s construction company. No written contract was memorialized. The president and his wife did not pay the concrete shell contractor and the contractor recorded a lien and sued to foreclose on the lien. Years later (the case had been stayed because the president and his wife filed for bankruptcy and the shell contractor had to get leave of the automatic bankruptcy stay to pursue the lien foreclosure), the shell contractor moved for summary judgment. The president and his wife moved for leave to file an amended answer and affirmative defenses. They claimed the oral contract was with the construction company and the shell contractor was required to serve a Notice to Owner under Florida Statute s. 713.06. Alternatively, they argued that if the oral contract was with the president and his wife, the shell contractor was required to serve a Final Contractor’s Payment Affidavit at least 5 days before filing its lien foreclosure claim, and did not, as required by s. 713.06. 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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