FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Partner Vik Nagpal is Recognized as a Top Lawyer of 2020

June 29, 2020 — Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Please join us in congratulating San Diego Partner Vik Nagpal for being recognized as a Top Lawyer of 2020 by San Diego Magazine! San Diego Magazine works with Martindale-Hubbell to choose top lawyers who have reached the highest level of ethical standards and professional excellence. Vik Nagpal was evaluated and given the highest ratings by the colleagues using a peer reviewed Vik Nagpal is the managing partner of Bremer Whyte Brown & O’Meara LLP’s San Diego offices, as well as directing the firm’s business development. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP

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Duty to Defend Negligent Misrepresentation Claim

April 15, 2014 — Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law Hawaii
The Kansas Court of Appeals determined that the insurer must defend claims of negligent misrepresentation against its insured. Central Power Sys. & Servs. v. Universal Underwriters Ins. Co., 2014 Kan. App. LEXIS 9 (Kan. Ct. App. Feb. 21, 2014). Central Power contracted to furnish Eagle Well with 10 oil-rig engines and 10 oil-rig transmissions. Eagle Well alleged that Central Power informed them that the engines and transmissions would be operational without any additional components. As is turned out, the engines could not operate without a wiring harness. Eagle Well had to hire a third party to make wiring harnesses that would meet their needs and to install the wiring harnesses. Eagle Wells sued Central Power, alleging damages in the form of lost profits for the time it took to make the engines independently operational. Further, damages were incurred due to money needed for the costs of purchasing the wiring harnesses from the third party and attaching the harnesses to the engines. Claims asserted against Central Power included breach of contract, negligence and negligent misrepresentation. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawaii
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

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When is Forum Selection in a Construction Contract Enforceable?

September 29, 2021 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
If there is one mantra that is repeated often here at Construction Law Musings, it is that your construction contract will be strictly construed and Virginia Courts will enforce the provisions as written. This rule includes forum selection clauses. For those that aren’t attorneys, this means that absent a statute to the contrary, the parties can pick the location of any litigation or arbitration by contract. However, the timing of signing that contract makes a difference as a relatively recent Eastern District of Virginia case points out. Marathon Res. Mgmt Grp v. C. Cornell, Inc. examined what happens when work is performed by one party to the contract prior to the execution of the written contract that contains the forum selection provision. In this case, the defendant C. Cornell, Inc. obtained a default judgment in Texas for non-payment by Marathon for painting and cleaning of rooms at Texas A & M University for work invoiced on August 22, 2017, and September 11, 2017. Upon receipt of the garnishment from the Texas Court, Marathon sued C. Cornell in Virginia state court and the defendant removed the case to federal court. Marathon alleged two separate breaches of contract, the first was that C. Cornell violated the forum selection clause of a Master Services Agreement (“MSA”) executed on September 23, 2017. The second was a violation of another clause of the MSA that barred direct communication with any of Marathon’s customers. The second breach was alleged to be by virtue of the garnishment summons to one of Marathon’s customers. 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

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#4 CDJ Topic: Vita Planning and Landscape Architecture, Inc. v. HKS Architects, Inc.

December 30, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
In the above mentioned case, a Texas architectural firm (HKS Architects, Inc.) hired a California design firm (Vita Planning and Landscape Architecture, Inc.) as a sub-consultant, according to Garret Murai of Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP in a post on his California Construction Law Blog. After Vita filed a complaint in California against HKS, HKS filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the landscape design contract included a “Texas forum selection clause.” The court found in favor of Vita, stating that “section 410.42 precludes enforcement of the forum selection clause requiring Vita to litigate its dispute against HKS in Texas.” Read the full story... In their article, “Court of Appeal Opens Pandora’s Box on Definition of ‘Contractor’ for Forum Selection Clauses,” Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP attorneys Abigail E. Lighthart and David A. Harris also analyzed the Vita case: “The Vita ruling expands the protections by Section 410.42 beyond traditional ‘builders’ to design professionals and architects who do not actually ‘build’ a project. What remains to be seen is whether other courts will take the expansion to cover other groups that are in any way involved in a construction project.” Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of

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Alert: AAA Construction Industry Rules Update

June 07, 2021 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
The American Arbitration Association has made some needed updates to their Construction Industry Arbitration and Mediation Rules, effective July 1, 2015. Among the changes listed at their website are:

• A mediation step for all cases with claims of $100,000 or more (subject to the ability of any party to opt out).
• Consolidation and joinder time frames and filing requirements to streamline these increasingly involved issues in construction arbitrations.
• New preliminary hearing rules to provide more structure and organization to get the arbitration process on the right track from the beginning.
• Information exchange measures to give arbitrators a greater degree of control to limit the exchange of information, including electronic documents.
• Availability of emergency measures of protection in contracts that have been entered into on or after July 1, 2015.
• Enforcement power of the arbitrator to issue orders to parties that refuse to comply with the Rules or the arbitrator’s orders.
• Permissibility of dispositive motions to dispose of all or part of a claim or to narrow the issue in a claim.

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

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Let’s Talk About a Statutory First-Party Bad Faith Claim Against an Insurer

February 19, 2024 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
Let’s talk about a statutory first-party bad faith claim against an insurer under Florida law. A recent opinion, discussed below, does a nice job providing a synopsis of a first-party statutory bad faith claim against an insurer: The Florida Legislature created the first-party bad faith cause of action by enacting section 624.155, Florida Statutes, which imposes a duty on insurers to settle their policyholders’ claims in good faith. The statutory obligation on the insurer is to timely evaluate and pay benefits owed under the insurance policy. The damages recoverable by the insured in a bad faith action are those amounts that are the reasonably foreseeable consequences of the insurer’s bad faith in resolving a claim, which include consequential damages. “[A] statutory bad faith claim under section 624.155 is ripe for litigation when there has been (1) a determination of the insurer’s liability for coverage; (2) a determination of the extent of the insured’s damages; and (3) the required [civil remedy] notice is filed pursuant to section 624.155(3)(a).” 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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Construction Payment Remedies: You May be Able to Skate by, But Why?

April 06, 2016 — Garret Murai – California Construction Law Blog
My grandfather used to say that “anything worth doing, is worth doing well.” It wasn’t until later that I learned the quote wasn’t his, but a quote from Philip Stanhope the Fourth Earl of Chesterfield, who said in his posthumously published and quite lengthily titled Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, that “whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” I’m not sure where my grandfather, who wasn’t a man of letters, picked up this quote, but I like his version better. While “anything worth doing, is worth doing well” can be said to apply to a wide variety of things in life, including living itself, it applies equally to the world of construction payment remedies, which have requirements that are both detailed and deadline driven. 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

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Think Twice About Depreciating Repair Costs in Our State, says the Tennessee Supreme Court

July 09, 2019 — Andres Avila - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Tennessee’s Supreme Court recently held that an insurer may not withhold repair labor costs as depreciation when the policy definition of actual cash value is found to be ambiguous. Tennessee joins other states like California and Vermont that prohibit the depreciation of repair labor costs in property policies. In Lammert v. Auto-Owners (Mut.) Ins. Co., No. M201702546SCR23CV, 2019 WL 1592687, the Lammerts and other insureds sought property damage coverage from Auto Owners Insurance for hail damage to a home and other structures they owned in Tennessee. Auto-Owners Insurance agreed to settle the claims on an actual cash value basis (ACV), which is a method of establishing the value of insured property that must be replaced to determine the indemnity by the insurer. There are multiple methods to calculate ACV. Auto-Owners decided to use the ACV calculation method of deducting depreciation from the cost to repair or replace the damaged property. Depreciation is the decline in value of a property since it was new because of use, age or wear. The rationale behind this method is that an insured should not make a profit by recovering the cost of, for example, a new roof for a damaged roof that was ten years old, and thus depreciation is deducted from the indemnity. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Andres Avila, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Mr. Avila may be contacted at ara@sdvlaw.com

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