Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Manhattan Developer Breaks Ground on $520 Million Project

November 18, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

Rebuilding an area of Midtown West that has been condemned for decades, the Gotham Organization has broken ground on a 1,200-unit project that will include housing for a variety of household incomes and a school. One unit of the project will be affordable housing for families of annual incomes up to $40,000. Another will be for middle-income households. Additionally, there will be a 31-story tower with 550 luxury units.

The site CityBiz quotes Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as saying that the project “will grow our economy by creating 2,900 construction-related jobs.” The president of the Gotham Organization, David L. Picket notes that it will “create hundreds of new jobs, generate millions of dollars in revenue for the construction industry, contribute towards the building of a new primary, and provide homes to thousands of New Yorkers.”

Read the full story…

Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

OSHA ETS Heads to Sixth Circuit

December 13, 2021 — George Morrison - White and Williams LLP
On November 16, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit was selected during the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s lottery to hear the multiple consolidated challenges to the recent COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). OSHA is permitted to issue an ETS if the agency arrives at the conclusion that a “grave danger” to worker safety exists. An ETS does not go through the typical notice-and-comment period that federal regulations usually follow. Inheriting the Fifth Circuit’s recent nationwide stay on implementation and enforcement of the ETS, the Sixth Circuit will decide whether the stay should be “modified, revoked, or extended” in the short term. Early this morning, OSHA filed an emergency motion to dissolve the Fifth Circuit’s stay of the vaccine mandate with the Sixth Circuit. OSHA argued, among other things:

The Fifth Circuit erred in holding “that OSHA lacked statutory authority to address the grave danger of COVID-19 in the place on the ground that COVID-19 is caused by a virus and also exists outside of the workplace” because “[t]hat rationale has no basis in the statutory text.”
The Fifth Circuit erred in finding the ETS both over- and underinclusive because “OSHA recounted extensive empirical data showing that all employees can transmit COVID-19 in the workplace and that COVID-19 has spread in a vast variety of workplace.”
The “petitioners have not shown that their claimed injuries outweigh the interests in protecting employees from a dangerous virus while this litigation proceeds . . . . These claimed injuries do not justify delaying the [ETS] that will save thousands of lives and prevent hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations.”

Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of George Morrison, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Morrison may be contacted at morrisong@whiteandwilliams.com

Federal Lawsuit Accuses MOX Contractors of Fraud

March 04, 2019 — Scott Judy - Engineering News-Record
A subcontractor employee working on the now-canceled MOX project in South Carolina used football tickets, automobile tires, barbecue grills and other gifts to persuade employees of CB&I AREVA MOX Services and other vendors to help approve thousands of fraudulent invoices cumulatively valued at more than $6.4 million, according to a Dept. of Justice lawsuit filed Feb. 14 that names both companies as defendants. The controversial project at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., originally scheduled for completion in 2016, was canceled in January after cost and schedule estimates increased significantly. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Scott Judy, ENR
Mr. Judy may be contacted at judys@enr.com

No Friday Night Lights at $60 Million Texas Stadium: Muni Credit

March 26, 2014 — Darrell Preston and Aaron Kuriloff – Bloomberg
Pervasive cracking has shuttered the $60 million home of a high-school football championship team in Texas after less than two years. Investors in the tax-free bonds that paid for the stadium are unscathed. Taxpayers in Allen Independent School District north of Dallas and the $29 billion Texas Permanent School Fund, a state bond insurer, are responsible for $119 million of debt that paid for the venue and other facilities, leading officials to find a new site for graduation and possibly games after closing 18,000-seat Eagle Stadium last month. The development suggests the fund, created in 1854 to help pay for education, shouldn’t be used for stadiums, said Colby Harlow, president of hedge fund Harlow Capital Management. The Permanent Fund has top credit ratings and secures about $55 billion of bonds, according to the Texas Education Agency. The pool has at times reached the limit of debt it can back, preventing districts from accessing it. The guarantee is still a boon to bondholders. Mr. Merelman may be contacted at smerelman@bloomberg.net; Mr. Sillup may be contacted at msillup@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Darrell Preston and Aaron Kuriloff, Bloomberg

Federal District Court Addresses Material Misrepresentation in First Party Property Damage Claim

August 26, 2024 — James M. Eastham - Traub Lieberman
In Pittsfield Dev. LLC v. Travelers Indem. Co., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117530 (N.D. Ill. July 3, 2024), the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois addressed an alleged material misrepresentation by an insured during the course of the adjustment of a water loss claim at an insured property. Subsequent to a pipe burst event which caused damage to a number of the floors in the insured building, the insured submitted a claim to Travelers and also submitted, with the assistance of a retained public adjuster, a damage estimate of the damages at the property. Included within the estimate submitted by the insured was a line item for "Lead Paint & Asbestos Removal" with a corresponding dollar amount of $1,140,000. It was this line item which formed the basis of Travelers' claim of misrepresentation. At his deposition, the public adjuster testified that the $1,140,000 figure was an oral estimate received over the phone from an asbestos remediation company. Travelers disputed the testimony and contended that no such estimate was ever provided. For support, Travelers pointed to deposition testimony from a remediation company employee that while rough estimates were occasionally given verbally, the largest over the phone estimate she could recall was in the $20,000-$25,000 range. It was also disputed that the company would ever provide an oral quote of that magnitude sight unseen, especially since the largest project the remediation company had ever completed was less than $250,000. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of James M. Eastham, Traub Lieberman
Mr. Eastham may be contacted at jeastham@tlsslaw.com

The Relevance and Reasonableness of Destructive Testing

August 17, 2017 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
Destructive testing is a routine investigatory procedure in construction defect disputes. The destructive testing is necessary to determine liability (causation), the extent of damage, and the repair protocol. Destructive testing is designed to answer numerous questions: Why did the building component fail? Was the building component constructed incorrectly? What is the magnitude of the damage caused by the failure? What specifically caused the damage? What is the most effective way to fix the failure and damage? There are different iterations to the same questions, but in many instances, destructive testing is necessary to answer these questions. Claimants sometimes prohibit destructive testing. Of course, destructive testing is intrusive. In many instances, it is very intrusive. But, this testing is a necessary evil. Without this testing, how can a defendant truly analyze their potential exposure and culpability? They need to be in a position to prepare a defense and figure out their liability. This does not mean destructive testing is warranted in every single construction defect dispute. That is not the case. However, to say it is never warranted is irrational. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Florida Construction Legal Updates
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at Dadelstein@gmail.com

California Court of Appeal: Inserting The Phrase “Ongoing Operations” In An Additional Endorsement Is Not Enough to Preclude Coverage for Completed Operations

September 14, 2017 — Gary Barrera - California Construction Law Blog
In a victory for additional insureds, a California appeals court held, in Pulte Home Corp. v. American Safety Indemnity Co., Cal.Ct.App. (4th Dist.), Docket No. D070478 (filed 8/30/17), that an insurer’s denial of coverage for completed operations based on the inclusion of the phrase “ongoing operations” in an additional insured endorsement, was improper. Additionally, an insurer wishing to limit coverage under an additional insured endorsement to ongoing operations must do so via clear and explicit language. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Gary Barrera, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Barrera may be contacted at gbarrera@wendel.com

Montrose Language Interpreted: How Many Policies Are Implicated By A Construction Defect That Later Causes a Flood?

March 17, 2011 — Shaun McParland Baldwin

The Court of Appeals of Indiana recently addressed the “Montrose” language added to the CGL ISO form in 2001 in the context of a construction defect claim where a fractured storm drain caused significant flooding a year after the drain was damaged. The insuring agreement requires that “bodily injury” or “property damage” be caused by an “occurrence” and that the “bodily injury” or “property damage” occur during the policy period. The Montrose language adds that the insurance applies only if, prior to the policy period, no insured knew that the “bodily injury” or “property damage” had occurred in whole or in part. Significantly, it also states that any “bodily injury“ or “property damage” which occurs during the policy period and was not, prior to the policy period known to have occurred, includes a continuation, change or resumption of that “bodily injury” or “property damage” after the end of the policy period.

In Grange Mutual Cas. Co. v. West Bend Mut. Ins. Co., No. 29D04-0706-PL-1112 (Ct. App. IN March 15, 2011), http://www.ai.org/judiciary/opinions/pdf/03151109ehf.pdf, Sullivan was the General Contractor for a school construction project. Its subcontractor, McCurdy, installed the storm drain pipes. One of the storm pipes was fractured in 2005 while McCurdy was doing its installation work. More than a year later, the school experienced significant water damage due to flooding. It was later discovered that the flooding was due to the fractured storm drain. Sullivan’s insurer paid $146,403 for the water damage. That insurer brought a subrogation claim against McCurdy and its two insurers: West Bend and Grange. West Bend had issued CGL coverage to McCurdy while the construction was ongoing , including the date in which the storm pipe was fractured. Grange issued CGL coverage to McCurdy at the time of the flooding. Those two carriers jointly settled the subrogation claim and then litigated which insurer actually owed coverage for the loss. Significantly, the loss that was paid included only damages from the flooding, not any damages for the cost of repairing the pipe.

Read the full story...

Reprinted courtesy of Shaun McParland Baldwin of Tressler LLP. Ms Baldwin can be contacted at sbaldwin@tresslerllp.com