Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Canada Home Resales Post First Fall in Eight Months

October 15, 2014 — Greg Quinn – Bloomberg
Canadian existing home sales fell from a four-year high in September (TNBHICY%), the first decline in eight months, led by Calgary and Edmonton in oil-rich Alberta. Sales fell 1.4 percent to 41,666 units, the Canadian Real Estate Association said today from Ottawa. From a year earlier sales rose 10.6 percent and the average price climbed 5.9 percent to C$408,795 ($362,100). The decline came in part because of a shortage of “affordably priced single family homes,” Beth Crosbie, CREA President, said in the report. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Greg Quinn, Bloomberg
Mr. Quinn may be contacted at gquinn1@bloomberg.net

Chinese Telecommunications Ban to Expand to Federally Funded Contracts Effective November 12, 2020

September 21, 2020 — Lori Ann Lange & Sabah Petrov - Peckar & Abramson
In our previous alert, we discussed the Federal Government’s Ban (the “Ban”) on certain Chinese covered telecommunications and video surveillance equipment and services in federal government contracts. The ban prohibits government contractors and subcontractors from supplying to the Federal Government or using in their own internal operations certain telecommunications or video surveillance equipment or services produced by Huawei Technologies Company, ZTE Corporation, Hytera Communications Corporation, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company, and Dahua Technology Company, as well as their subsidiaries and affiliates. The Ban currently applies to companies contracting directly with the Federal Government. Soon, however, the Ban – at least in part – will expand to contractors and subcontractors who are awarded certain federally assisted contracts and subcontracts. On August 13, 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) published Final Guidance revising its grants and agreements regulations (2 CFR Part 200) to prohibit recipients and subrecipients from using loan or grant funds to purchase or obtain covered telecommunications and video surveillance equipment or services. Effective November 12, 2020, recipients and subrecipients are prohibited from obligating or expending loan or grant funds to:

Procure or obtain;
Extend or renew a contract to procure or obtain; or
Enter into a contract (or extend or renew a contract) to procure or obtain equipment, services, or systems that use covered telecommunications equipment or services as a substantial or essential component of any system, or as critical technology as part of any system.

Reprinted courtesy of Lori Ann Lange, Peckar & Abramson and Sabah Petrov, Peckar & Abramson Ms. Lange may be contacted at llange@pecklaw.com Ms. Petrov may be contacted at spetrov@pecklaw.com Read the court decision
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Georgia Supreme Court Determines Damage to "Other Property" Not Necessary for Finding Occurrence

July 31, 2013 — Tred Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawaii
The Georgia Supreme Court has determined that an "occurrence" may arise under a CGL policy even if "other property" is not damaged. Taylor Morrison Servs. v. HDI-Gerling Am. Ins. Co., 2013 Ga. LEXIS 618 (Ga. July 12, 2013). Taylor Morrison, the insured, was a homebuilder. It was sued in a class action by more than 400 homeowners in California alleging that the concrete foundations of their homes were improperly constructed. This led to water intrusion, cracks in the floors and driveways, and warped and buckled flooring. At first, HDI-Gerling defended under a reservation of rights. Subsequently, however, HDI-Gerling sued Taylor Morrison in federal district court in Georgia, seeking a declaratory judgment that there was no coverage. The district court granted summary judgment to HDI-Gerling after determining that there was no "occurrence" when the only "property damage" alleged was damage to work of the insured. Georgia law was applied to the dispute. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred Eyerly
Tred Eyerly can be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

The Almost-Collapse of a Sarasota, Florida Condo Building

July 11, 2021 — Beverley BevenFlorez – CDJ Staff
Five years ago, residents of the Dolphin Tower in Sarasota, Florida were forced to evacuate after cracks appeared in their fourth-floor condominium units. “My assistant calls me and says, ‘[Kris] thinks the building is falling down,’” David Karins of Karins Engineering told Sarasota Magazine. “I said, ‘I doubt that.’ Then I got there and saw what was going on and I said, ‘You know, the building may be falling down.’” In July of 2010, city officials ordered all residents to evacuate. Five years and $11 million dollars in rehabilitation and residents were finally able to move back in last month. The Herald-Tribune had previously interviewed John Bonacci, an engineer at Sarasota’s Karins Engineering: “I’d say yes, there was grave danger. It was luck that it didn’t come all the way down. Getting shoring in there quickly was instrumental in preventing it from collapsing.” Read the full story, Sarasota Magazine... Read the full story, Herald-Tribune... Read the court decision
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Top Developments March 2024

April 22, 2024 — Complex Insurance Coverage Reporter
CLAIMS-MADE COVERAGE Zurich Am. Ins. Co. v. Syngenta Crop Prot. LLC, 2024 Del. LEXIS 68 (Del. Feb. 26, 2024) Delaware Supreme Court concludes that a letter from a lawyer informing an insured of possible lawsuits without identifying potential plaintiffs or demanding payment is not a “claim for damages” within the meaning of claims-made CGL and umbrella liability policies. Citing case law from Delaware and other jurisdictions, it reasoned that, in the ordinary sense, a “claim for damages” (which the policies did not define) is “a demand or request for monetary relief by or on behalf of an identifiable claimant.” According to the court, the letter in question did not meet this definition because it did not identify any claimants “except in the vaguest terms” or request monetary relief on any claimant’s behalf, but rather communicated only a threat of future litigation. As a result, the letter was not a claim made before the policy periods at issue. POLLUTION EXCLUSION Wesco Ins. Co. v. Brad Ingram Constr., 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 1488 (9th Cir. Jan. 23, 2024) A divided Ninth Circuit panel, applying California law, holds that a pollution exclusion* in a CGL policy does not preclude a duty to defend an underlying suit alleging physical injury from exposure to “clouds of toxic dust” deposited in the environment by a wildfire and released during clean up efforts. Citing MacKinnon v. Truck Ins. Exch., 73 P.3d 1205 (Cal. 2003), the majority explained that determining whether a “pollution event” (i.e., “environmental pollution”) resulting in excluded injury has occurred involves consideration of “the character of the injurious substance” and whether the exposure resulted from a “mechanism specified in the policy.” It concluded that a potential for coverage (and, therefore, a defense obligation) existed because, although wildfire debris may be considered a “pollutant” in certain circumstances, the mechanism alleged in the underlying complaint – “expos[ure] . . . to clouds of toxic dust during the loading and unloading of [the underlying plaintiff’s] truck” – did not clearly constitute an “event commonly thought of as pollution.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of White and Williams LLP

No Coverage For Wind And Flood Damage Suffered From Superstorm Sandy

July 27, 2020 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The court found that the policy's anti-sequential clause barred coverage for damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. Estate of Doerfler v. Fed. Ins. Co., 2020 N.J. Sup. Unpub. LEXIS 920 (May 14, 2020). The insureds held identical homeowners policies from Chubb and Federal Insurance Company. Damage resulting from flood was not covered. The policies' "surface water exclusion" stated,

[W]e do not cover any loss caused by: flood, surface water, waves, tidal water, overflow of water from a body of water . . . or spray from any of these even if driven by wind.

The insureds also had separate flood insurance policies, insuring the structure of each home for $250,000. Superstorm Sandy created wind gusts as high as eighty miles per hour. A severe storm surge caused tides to rise between nine and eleven feet. The storm surge caused surface water to flood onto plaintiffs' properties and their homes ultimately collapsed. 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

Tension Over Municipal Gas Bans Creates Uncertainty for Real Estate Developers

February 07, 2022 — Sidney L. Fowler, Robert G. Howard & Emily Huang - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
On November 15, 2021, the New York City Council approved a bill banning gas hookups in new buildings, making the biggest city in the U.S. the latest in a string of municipalities to prohibit natural gas infrastructure in new homes and buildings. In the two-and-a-half years since Berkeley, California, passed its then-novel municipal ban on new natural gas infrastructure, numerous cities have found themselves at odds with state governments and industry groups on the issue of full electrification in residential and commercial real estate. The resulting disputes, litigation and regulatory uncertainty have created headaches for the real estate industry. Although not all view the restrictions as negative, and many developers have embraced the push for more climate-neutral buildings, these bans introduce complexity to the real estate market, raising additional legal and commercial challenges. Background According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the use of natural gas in homes and businesses accounts for 13 percent of annual U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. For that reason, advocacy groups have pushed cities to prohibit natural gas infrastructure in new construction and encourage full electrification of newly constructed buildings. In addition to New York and Berkeley, cities that have either passed or considered such ordinances include San Francisco, Sacramento, Seattle and Denver, as well as numerous smaller cities. New York City’s newly passed gas ban, in particular, prohibits natural gas hookups in new buildings under seven stories by 2024, and in taller buildings by 2027, but exempts hookups in commercial kitchens. Reprinted courtesy of Sidney L. Fowler, Pillsbury, Robert G. Howard, Pillsbury and Emily Huang, Pillsbury Mr. Fowler may be contacted at sidney.fowler@pillsburylaw.com Mr. Howard may be contacted at robert.howard@pillsburylaw.com Ms. Huang may be contacted at emily.huang@pillsburylaw.com Read the court decision
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Mortgage Bonds Stare Down End of Fed Easing as Gains Persist

October 29, 2014 — Jody Shenn – Bloomberg
The end of the Federal Reserve’s third round of bond purchases is proving to be a non-event for mortgage-backed debt. That’s partly because even though the U.S. central bank won’t be adding more home-loan securities to its balance sheet, policy makers will still be buying enough to prevent its holdings from shrinking. Those purchases are having a greater impact as the pace of net issuance slows to a quarter of the amount last year amid a weaker property market. The $5.4 trillion market for government-backed mortgage bonds is defying predictions for a slump tied to the wind-down of the Fed stimulus program, whose completion economists predict will be announced today. Yields on benchmark Fannie Mae (FNMA) notes have shrunk 0.14 percentage point this year relative to government debt, narrowing to within 1.09 percentage points of an average of five- and 10-year Treasury rates. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jody Shenn, Bloomberg
Ms. Shenn may be contacted at jshenn@bloomberg.net

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