Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

What is Bad Faith?

April 04, 2022 — Stacy M. Manobianca - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
As a policyholder, you may have heard the term “bad faith” in the context of litigation against your insurer. Bad faith in the insurance context is a catch-all term for a broad category of claims that can be brought against your insurer. Bad faith claims are common in insurance coverage litigation, and they can be a powerful tool in a policyholder’s arsenal. This post will serve as an introduction to some basic concepts surrounding bad faith litigation.

Bad Faith Defined:

Statutory vs. Common Law Bad Faith Claims
Breach of Contract vs. Tort Bad Faith Claims
Substantive vs. Procedural Bad Faith Claims

Best Practices Throughout the Claims Process:
Involve an Experienced Coverage Attorney
Conclusion

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Reprinted courtesy of Stacy M. Manobianca, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Ms. Manobianca may be contacted at SManobianca@sdvlaw.com

Musk’s Cousins Battle Utilities to Make Solar Rooftops Cheap

April 15, 2015 — John Lippert and Christopher Martin – Bloomberg
In September 2013, Hawaiian Electric Co. told thousands of customers they couldn’t connect their new solar panels to its distribution grid. In some neighborhoods, HECO said, its system couldn’t absorb any more unused energy from home solar arrays. The moratorium, which lasted 13 months, made Hawaii a central battleground in the effort by utilities to control the rapid growth of independent solar companies across the U.S. And it was a big deal to people such as Robert Gould, a retired Northwest Airlines pilot living near Honolulu. He’d just paid $53,000 to have solar panels installed. Gould and other customers protested loudly to state officials. They finally got help from Lyndon Rive, the CEO of SolarCity. The San Mateo, California, company is the biggest installer of rooftop solar panels in the U.S. and has 10,000 Hawaiian customers, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its May issue. Rive studied the situation and zeroed in on a key fact: HECO had never directly measured how much solar its grid could handle, relying on computer simulations instead. “Because the technology is brand-new, no one had ever done this in the field before,” says Colton Ching, HECO’s vice president for energy delivery. Reprinted courtesy of John Lippert, Bloomberg and Christopher Martin, Bloomberg Read the court decision
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Be Careful with Good Faith Payments

February 24, 2020 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
Sometimes doing the expedient thing and what looks good at the time can come back to bite you. Just ask 3M Company. In Faneuil, Inc. v. 3M Co., the Virginia Supreme Court considered a customer services subcontract between Faneuil and 3M relating to a toll collection contract 3M entered into with ERC. The subcontract had a “pay if paid” clause in it requiring payment to 3M from ERC before ERC was required to pay Faneuil, a written change order provision and a base monthly payment to Faneuil for the services that could be reduced in the event of less than expected toll collections. Further, the subcontract stated that if either party settled 3rd party claims, that settlement would not bind the other party to the subcontract absent consent or Court order. Faneuil was then alleged to have been required to provide “Special Services” relating to manual identification of license plates and other information necessary for toll billing due to 3M’s alleged failure to provide adequate imaging services. Faneuil requested (without written change order) and 3M promised to pay extra for these services. When 3M was slow to pay for the special services, Faneuil did what you would expect and threatened to stop providing them. Instead of contesting the right to the work, 3m made sporadic “good faith” payments to induce continued Special Services from Faneuil. Eventually 3M’s issues caused ERC to stop payments and thus 3M stopped paying Faneuil. 3M then settled the payment claims with ERC and still failed to pay Faneuil. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

Measures Landlords and Property Managers Can Take in Response to a Reported COVID-19 Infection

May 18, 2020 — Kyle Janecek & Jason Morris - Newmeyer Dillion
Most landlords and property managers are now familiar with steps they should be taking to reduce the spread of COVID-19. But what if a tenant or employee has tested positive with COVID-19? Unfortunately, many landlords and property managers are grappling with this very question. While there’s some clarity as it pertains to evictions in the landlord-tenant context, other considerations like disinfection, required notices, and maintenance, are evolving or unclear. Here are steps landlords and property managers can take in response to an employee or tenant testing positive with COVID-19. Measures Landlords Can Take for Employees For workplaces, there is a large variety of guidelines and procedures that are generally available to review. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has valuable guidance available online here and here. The Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) has valuable guidance available online here. In short, if there is an incident where one employee may have exposed others to COVID-19, here are five steps employers should take:

Send the affected employee home and instruct them not to return to work until the criteria to discontinue home isolation are met in consultation with healthcare providers, and state and local health departments. Make sure to maintain all information about employee illnesses as a confidential medical record.
Ask the affected employee whether they have had close contact with any other workers.

Reprinted courtesy of J. Kyle Janecek, Newmeyer Dillion and Jason L. Morris, Newmeyer Dillion Mr. Janecek may be contacted at kyle.janecek@ndlf.com Mr. Morris may be contacted at jason.morris@ndlf.com Read the court decision
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MBS’s $500 Billion Desert Dream Just Keeps Getting Weirder

August 29, 2022 — Vivian Nereim - Bloomberg
One day last September, a curious email arrived in Chris Hables Gray’s inbox. An author and self-described anarchist, feminist, and revolutionary, Gray fits right into Santa Cruz, Calif., where he lives. He’s written extensively about genetic engineering and the inevitable rise of cyborgs, attending protests in between for causes such as Black Lives Matter. While Gray had taken some consulting gigs over the years, he’d never received an offer like this one. The first shock was the money: significantly more than he’d earned from all but one of his books. The second was the task: researching the aesthetics of seminal works of science fiction such as Blade Runner. The biggest surprise, however, was the ultimate client: Mohammed bin Salman, the 36-year-old crown prince of Saudi Arabia. MBS, as he’s known abroad, was in the early stages of one of the largest and most difficult construction projects in history, which involves turning an expanse of desert the size of Belgium into a high-tech city-region called Neom. Starting with a budget of $500 billion, MBS bills Neom as a showpiece that will transform Saudi Arabia’s economy and serve as a testbed for technologies that could revolutionize daily life. And as Gray’s proposed assignment suggested, the crown prince’s vision bears little resemblance to the cities of today. Intrigued, Gray took the job. “If I can be honest with how I see the world, I’ll pretty much put my work out to anyone,” he says. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Vivian Nereim, Bloomberg

SEC Climate Change Disclosure Letter Foreshadows Anticipated Regulatory Changes

November 08, 2021 — Karen C. Bennett & Jane C. Luxton - Lewis Brisbois
Washington, D.C. (October 13, 2021) - In late September 2021, the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a Sample Letter providing guidance to companies on how their climate disclosures will be analyzed for compliance with material risk reporting obligations. The Sample Letter precedes the SEC’s issuance of mandatory climate-related disclosure rules anticipated by year-end and signals a greater focus on specific information used to support securities filings, a development that businesses should take seriously. The Sample Letter builds on climate change guidance the SEC issued in 2010 and identifies nine categories of disclosures the SEC suggests may be material risks that must be disclosed. These include:

Consistency between a company’s corporate social responsibility report and its SEC filings;
Risks associated with climate-related legislation, regulation, or policy, and resulting compliance costs;
Litigation risks related to climate change; and
Risks linked to an array of operational and market factors, including capital expenditures, continuity of business operations, supply chain stability, changing demand, reputation, availability of credit and insurance, and other climate-change related potential impacts on the financial condition of the company.

Reprinted courtesy of Karen C. Bennett, Lewis Brisbois and Jane C. Luxton, Lewis Brisbois Ms. Bennett may be contacted at Karen.Bennett@lewisbrisbois.com Ms. Luxton may be contacted at Jane.Luxton@lewisbrisbois.com Read the court decision
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Few Homes Available to Reno Buyers, Plenty of Commercial Properties

January 22, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Saying that "new home inventory does not exist," Mark Krueger of ArchCrest Commercial Partners tells the Reno Gazette Journal that this had lead to a problem, in that there are no homes for prospective buyers in the Reno and Sparks area. Adding to the problem is that investors are buying up resale homes with the intent of selling them at a profit later, which adds to the scarcity of available homes. While the residential market is suffering from not enough homes to satisfy buyers, there are ample commercial properties. As a result, there are no plans for any additional retail, office, or industrial projects in the Reno area for 2013. Vacancy rates are expected to fall only slightly to 12.3% for industrial properties and 17.7% for retail properties. Read the court decision
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Extreme Rainfall Is Becoming More Frequent and Deadly

November 11, 2024 — Lou Del Bello - Bloomberg
Torrential rains that triggered floods and landslides have killed hundreds of people and displaced millions across parts of Africa, Europe, Asia and the US in recent months. The unprecedented deluges overwhelmed even communities accustomed to extreme weather and showed the limitations of the early-warning systems and emergency protocols established in many countries to avoid major loss of life. Climate scientists have warned that an accelerated water cycle is locked into the world’s climate system due to past and projected greenhouse gas emissions, and is now irreversible. The communities that tend to pay the highest price are often in poorer countries, where environments can be more fragile and governance more patchy, and there are fewer resources to bounce back after a disaster. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Lou Del Bello, Bloomberg

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