Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

No Coverage for Faulty Workmanship Based Upon Exclusion for Contractual Assumption of Liability

August 06, 2019 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The Supreme Court for West Virginia determined the policy's contractual assumption exclusion barred coverage for the general contractor based upon claims of faulty workmanship. J.A. St & Assocs. v. Bitco Gen. Ins. Corp., 2019 W. Va. LEXIS 205 (May 1, 2019). J.A. Street & Associates, Inc. entered a contract with the developer, Thundering Herd Development, L.L.C., to build a commercial shopping center on seventy-eight acres of land. Street agreed to oversee the site preparation for the development and the construction of many of the buildings. Thundering Herd retained an engineering firm, S&ME, Inc. to do geotechnical exploration and to provide advice regarding land preparation for the shopping center. Thundering Heard also entered an agreement with the Target Corporation to construct a store on a pad to be prepared at the shopping center. Street hired subcontractors to prepare the site by grading the land and installing fill material. A slope was constructed at the rear of the proposed Target site, but it failed, causing a landslide, damage to the pad, and damage to adjacent property owned by a third party. Thundering Heard incurred $721,875 in additional costs to repair this slope, reconstruct the Target site, and compensate the neighbor for the damage to the adjacent property. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

Commercial Construction Heating Up

November 20, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
The Motley Fool suggests that commercial construction is the next hot sector. Their analysis is that lag time between a rise in residential construction and commercial construction is just about over. “Industry surveys and construction data are suggestion that commercial construction could be about to turn.” Among the indicators are increased billing by architects for commercial projects. With the exception of December 2012, with a strong slump in residential work, commercial projects lagged below residential projects from June 2012 until June 2013. Read the court decision
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Legal Implications of 3D Printing in Construction Loom

July 10, 2018 — Aldo E. Ibarra - Engineering News-Record
Imagine a printer in the middle of a construction site programmed with a designer’s plans and specifications to build an entire home from scratch. As concrete is fed into the printing device, a technician hits enter on her computer and a 3D printer starts fabricating the structure’s walls and roof. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aldo E. Ibarra, ENR
ENR staff may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com

Contractors Struggle with Cash & Difficult Payment Terms, Could Benefit From Legal Advice, According to New Survey

December 30, 2019 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
Guest Post Friday is back with a post from my pal Scott Wolfe. Scott is the founder and CEO of Levelset, which is used by thousands of contractors to make payments fast and easy. Scott, previously a construction attorney himself, founded Levelset to even the $1 trillion construction playing field, and is on a mission to make payments less stressful for contractors and suppliers across the globe. Getting paid in construction is slow, hard, and stressful, according to a survey conducted by Levelset & TSheets by Quickbooks that polled over 500 construction professionals. Half of the contractors surveyed complained that they did not get paid on time, which caused serious cash flow issues that negatively impacted their customer relationships and frequently forced them to dip into personal savings and lines of credit to keep their business afloat. View the 2019 Construction Payment Report here. Unfortunately, since the construction industry’s slow payment problems are well-documented, this sad reality isn’t too surprising. The findings, though, do demonstrate a massive cash crunch for the 1.5 million+ contractors in the United States, and underscores the importance of having legal help and counsel from a construction lawyer before, during, and after jobs. 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

Partner Bradley T. Guldalian Secures Summary Judgment Win for National Hotel Chain

August 26, 2019 — Bradley T. Guldalian - Traub Lieberman
On June 26, 2019, Traub Lieberman Straus & Shrewsberry LLP Partner Bradley T. Guldalian secured summary judgment on behalf of a national hotel chain in a slip and fall accident filed in Osceola County Circuit Court in Kissimmee, Florida. The underlying loss occurred when the Plaintiff slipped and fell in a puddle of water allegedly existing in the hotel’s laundry room and suffered a partial thickness rotator cuff tear involving the distal infraspinatus tendon for which he underwent surgery and incurred over $70,000 in medical bills. The Plaintiff filed a premises liability action against the hotel claiming the hotel had failed to maintain its premises in a reasonably safe condition proximately causing the Plaintiff’s fall and resulting injuries. After discovery closed, Mr. Guldalian filed a motion for summary judgment on behalf of the hotel arguing that to prevail in a negligence claim involving a “transitory foreign substance”, such as water on a floor, an injured party must plead and prove pursuant to Florida Statute 768.0755 that the business establishment had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have taken action to remedy it prior to the time of the alleged fall. Constructive knowledge may be proven by circumstantial evidence showing that (1) the dangerous condition existed for such a length of time that, in the exercise of ordinary care, the business establishment should have known of the condition or (2) that the condition occurred with such regularity that it was foreseeable that the condition would be present on the day the injury occurred. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Bradley T. Guldalian, Traub Lieberman
Mr. Guldalian may be contacted at bguldalian@tlsslaw.com

Manhattan Site for Supertall Condo Finds New Owner at Auction

December 15, 2016 — Oshrat Carmiel – Bloomberg
A development site slated for an almost 1,000-foot condo tower on Manhattan’s far east side found a new owner through a bankruptcy auction Tuesday, removing a hurdle for construction after about a year of delays. Gamma Real Estate, the lender to the project, won the auction with a credit bid of $86 million and is poised to take control of the site, pending approval from the bankruptcy court, said David Schechtman, a broker with Meridian Investment Sales, which handled the auction with another brokerage. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Oshrat Carmiel, Bloomberg
Mr. Carmiel can be followed on Twitter @OshratCarmiel

Edward Beitz and William Taylor Recognized by US News – Best Lawyers as a "Lawyer of the Year"

August 31, 2020 — Edward Beitz & William Taylor - White and Williams
White and Williams is proud to announce that Edward Beitz and William Taylor have been recognized by U.S. News – Best Lawyers® as a “Lawyer of the Year” in their respective practices in Philadelphia. Ed was named in the area of Medical Malpractice and Bill was named in Construction Law. "Lawyer of the Year" recognitions are awarded to individual lawyers with extremely high overall peer-feedback for a specific practice area and geographic location. Ed is a member of the Healthcare Group and focuses his practice on medical malpractice defense, defending doctors, nurses, physician assistants and hospitals at the trial and appellate court levels, as well as general liability matters. He has successfully defended numerous medical malpractice cases at trial involving complex issues of the human anatomy, such as cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery, nursing care, obstetrical complications, nerve injury and vascular injury. Ed has authored briefs on appellate issues in healthcare and coverage matters to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, the New Jersey Appellate Division and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Reprinted courtesy of Edward Beitz, White and Williams and William Taylor, White and Williams Mr. Beitz may be contacted at beitze@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Taylor may be contacted at taylorw@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Fact of Settlement Communications in Underlying Lawsuits is Not Ground for Anti-SLAPP Motion in Subsequent Bad Faith Lawsuit

August 24, 2020 — Christopher Kendrick & Valerie A. Moore – Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
In Trilogy Plumbing, Inc. v. Navigators Specialty Ins. Co. (No. G057796, filed 5/27/20, ord. pub. 6/18/20), a California appeals court ruled that an insurance bad faith lawsuit alleging a variety of claim handling misconduct in defending the insured was not subject to an insurer’s special Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) motion to strike because, while the alleged acts were generally connected to litigation, they did not include any written or oral statement or writing made in connection with an issue under consideration or review by a judicial body and, therefore, did not constitute protected activity under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. In Trilogy Plumbing, the policyholder was sued in 33 different construction defect lawsuits, some of which Navigators defended, and others which were denied or had the defense withdrawn. The Navigators’ policies were subject to a $5,000 deductible, and Trilogy alleged that Navigators breached the contracts by “demanding deductible reimbursement amounts greater than the policies’ $5,000 stated deductible, and by seeking reimbursement of ordinary defense fees and expenses as if they were subject to deductible reimbursement,” “claiming a right to seek reimbursement from Trilogy for defense fees and expenses Navigators paid for the benefit of third-party additional insureds,” “providing conflicted defense counsel who took instructions only from Navigators without disclosing conflicts of interest,” “failing to reasonably settle cases and by withdrawing [the] defense as a strategic means of trying to force Trilogy to fund its own settlements,” “misrepresenting its deductible provisions,” “refusing to account for deductible amounts it charges and collects,” and others. Reprinted courtesy of Christopher Kendrick, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP and Valerie A. Moore, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP Mr. Kendrick may be contacted at ckendrick@hbblaw.com Ms. Moore may be contacted at vmoore@hbblaw.com Read the court decision
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FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES