16 Wilke Fleury Attorneys Featured in Sacramento Magazine 2021 Top Lawyers!
September 20, 2021 —
Wilke Fleury LLPCongratulations to Wilke Fleury’s featured attorneys who made the Sacramento Magazine’s Top Lawyer List for 2021!
The voting for Professional Research Services’ survey to determine the top attorneys in 2021 for Sacramento Magazine was open to all licensed attorneys in Sacramento, Calif. Attorneys were asked whom they would recommend among 56 legal specialties, other than themselves, in the Sacramento area. Each attorney was allowed to recommend up to three colleagues in each given legal specialty. Once the online nominations were complete, each nominee was carefully evaluated on the basis of the survey results, the legitimacy of their license, and their current standing with the State Bar of California. Attorneys who received the highest number of votes in each specialty are reflected in the following list. – Sacramento Magazine
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Wilke Fleury LLP
A Downside of Associational Standing - HOA's Claims Against Subcontractors Barred by Statute of Limitations
March 28, 2012 —
Bret Cogdill, Colorado Construction LitigationIn multi-family construction defect litigation in Colorado, homeowners associations rely on associational standing to pursue claims affecting more than two units and to bring claims covering an entire development. This practice broadens an association’s case beyond what individual, aggrieved owners would otherwise bring on their own against a developer or builder-vendor. However, reliance on associational standing to combine homeowners’ defect claims into a single lawsuit has its drawbacks to homeowners.
A recent order in the case Villa Mirage Condominium Owners’ Association, Inc., v. Stetson 162, LLC, et al., in El Paso County District Court, presents an example. There, the HOA unsuccessfully sought a determination from the court that its claims against subcontractors were not barred by the statute of limitations. To do so, the HOAs attempted to apply the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (“CCIOA”), which governs the creation and operation of HOAs, and a statute intended to apply to persons under a legal disability.
Under CCIOA, during the period of “declarant control” the developer may appoint members to the association’s executive board until sufficient homeowners have moved into the development and taken seats on the board.
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Reprinted courtesy of Bret Cogdill of Higgins, Hopkins, McClain & Roswell, LLC. Mr. Cogdill can be contacted at cogdill@hhmrlaw.com.
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You Are Not A “Liar” Simply Because You Amend Your Complaint
March 14, 2022 —
David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal UpdatesIn litigation, it is common for a plaintiff to amend their complaint. They may amend to add additional parties. To add new claims. To change the factual allegations. Or, to change the theme of their case.
Most of the time, complaints are not verified by the plaintiff. Instead, complaints are drafted and signed by the plaintiff’s counsel.
A question becomes: how prior reiterations of a complaint can be used against the plaintiff to show they are a bunch of “liars” by making amendments to their complaint. Sounds prejudicial to the plaintiff, right? Particularly if there is a jury.
The reality is that amending complaints for various reasons is routine. Doing so does NOT make the plaintiff a liar and is not a vehicle that a defendant should use to create this inference. A defendant that tries to do so simply wants to detract from the substantive facts and issues.
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David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at
dma@kirwinnorris.com
“I Didn’t Sign That!” – Applicability of Waivers of Subrogation to Non-Signatory Third Parties
September 30, 2019 —
Rahul Gogineni - The Subrogation StrategistIn Gables Construction v. Red Coats, 2019 Md. App. LEXIS 419, Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals considered whether a contractual waiver of subrogation in the prime contract for a construction project barred a third party – a fire watch vendor hired to guard the worksite – from pursuing a contribution claim against the general contractor. The court concluded that the general contractor could not rely on the waiver of subrogation clause to defeat the contribution claim of the vendor, who was not a party to the prime contract. As noted by the court, holding that a waiver of subrogation clause bars the contribution claims of an entity that was not a party to the contract would violate the intent of the Maryland Uniform Contribution Among Tortfeasors Act (UCATA).
When dealing with claims involving construction projects, there may exist multiple contracts between various parties that contain waivers of subrogation. The enforceability of such waivers can be limited by several factors, including the jurisdiction of the loss, the language of the waiver and the parties to the contract.
In Gables Construction, Upper Rock, Inc. (Upper Rock), the owner, contracted with a general contractor, Gables Construction (GCI) (hereinafter referred to as the “prime contract”), to construct an apartment complex. After someone stole a bobcat tractor from the jobsite, Gables Residential Services Incorporated (GRSI), GCI’s parent company, signed a vendor services agreement (VSA) with Red Coats to provide a fire watch and other security services for the project.
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Rahul Gogineni, White and Williams LLPMr. Gogineni may be contacted at
goginenir@whiteandwilliams.com
A New Digital Twin for an Existing Bridge
May 01, 2023 —
Aarni Heiskanen - AEC BusinessThe smartBRIDGE Hamburg project devised a digital twin of a 1970s bridge using open BIM technologies. Allplan and Solibri were instrumental in developing the twin that enables the Hamburg Port Authority, HPA, to maintain the critical infrastructure asset predictively.
Built in 1974, the Köhlbrand Bridge is Germany’s second-longest road bridge and one of its busiest. The cable-stayed bridge serves around 36,000 vehicles daily, thus being crucial to the local economy.
The age of the bridge and the amount of daily traffic it supported meant that continuous real-time monitoring was the best way to identify repairs and minimize disruption to traffic.
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Aarni Heiskanen, AEC BusinessMr. Heiskanen may be contacted at
aec-business@aepartners.fi
NLRB Broadens the Joint Employer Standard
September 17, 2015 —
Craig Martin – Construction Contractor AdvisorPerhaps in anticipation of Labor Day, the National Labor Relations Board issued its ruling in Browning-Ferris Indus. of Cal. d/b/a BFI Newby Island Recyclery, establishing an easier standard for unions to prove that a joint employer relationship exists. This will make it easier for unions to make the upstream company, like a parent company, liable for unfair labor practices, even if the upstream company had no direct involvement.
Some Background
BFI runs a recycling plant and contracts with Leadpoint to provide workers to sort garbage in the recycling plant. The staffing agreement specifically stated that Leadpoint was the sole employer of the personnel it supplied and Leadpoint handled supervision of the employees, not BFI.
Leadpoint’s employees sought to unionize and an election was held. The union filed a petition seeking a determination that Leadpoint and BFI were a joint employers.
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Craig Martin, Lamson, Dugan and Murray, LLPMr. Martin may be contacted at
cmartin@ldmlaw.com
Superior Court Of Pennsylvania Holds Curb Construction Falls Within The Scope Of CASPA
September 17, 2014 —
Jerrold Anders & Michael Jervis – White and Williams LLPIn Prieto Corp. v. Gambone Construction Co., the Superior Court of Pennsylvania recently considered three issues arising out of a construction dispute, including whether construction of a curb falls within the scope of the Contractor and Subcontractor Payment Act (CASPA), 73 P.S. §§ 501-516. CASPA is a Pennsylvania statute which is intended to protect contractors and subcontractors from abuses in the building industry and which establishes certain rules and deadlines for payments between owners, contractors, and subcontractors. Failure to abide by the act’s payment requirements subjects an owner or contractor to liability for interest, penalties and attorneys fees. In this case, Prieto was a subcontractor hired by Gambone to construct concrete or Belgian block curbs at Gambone’s property developments. Prieto sued Gambone under CASPA for failure to pay its invoices for four projects. After the trial court entered judgment for Prieto, Gambone appealed, arguing that CASPA did not encompass the work at issue, i.e. the construction of curbs, because curbs did not constitute an improvement to real property.
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Jerrold Anders, White and Williams LLP and
Michael Jervis, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Anders may be contacted at andersj@whiteandwilliams.com; Mr. Jervis may be contacted at jervism@whiteandwilliams.com
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Ninth Circuit: Speculative Injuries Do Not Confer Article III Standing
February 28, 2018 —
Omar Parra and Lawrence S. Zucker II – Publications & InsightsAs Dwight Schrute of hit NBC show “The Office” said, “identity theft is not a joke, Jim! Millions of families suffer every year!” In response, Congress has passed a variety of legislation over the years aimed at curbing identity theft. One such piece of legislation, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), as amended by corollary acts, prohibits the printing of more than the last 5 digits of the credit card number or the credit card number’s expiration date on any sales receipt. Anyone who “willfully fails to comply with [the requirements] is liable to that consumer” for statutory or actual damages, attorney’s fees and costs, and potential punitive damages. But is a statutory violation of the FCRA alone a sufficient injury to confer Article III standing? No, says the Ninth Circuit.
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Omar Parra, Haight, Brown & Bonesteel LLP and
Lawrence S. Zucker II , Haight, Brown & Bonesteel LLP
Mr. Parra may be contacted at oparra@hbblaw.com
Mr. Zucker may be contacted at lzucker@hbblaw.com
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