FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Appraisers’ Failure to Perform Assessment of Property’s Existence or Damage is Reversible Error

July 30, 2015 — Christopher Kendrick and Valerie A. Moore – Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
In Lee v. California Capital Insurance Co. (No. A136280; filed 6/18/15), a California Court of Appeal held that it was error for an appraisal panel to assign loss values to items simply because they were listed in the insured’s scope of loss, and regardless of whether inspection revealed they were undamaged or never existed. California Capital insured a twelve unit apartment building owned by Ms. Lee in Oakland, California. When a fire damaged one unit, the insurer prepared an estimate of $69,255 and paid an undisputed amount of $46,755, which was the amount of the estimate less depreciation and the deductible. But Ms. Lee claimed that six of the units had been damaged, and she retained a public adjuster who submitted a claim exceeding $800,000. This included cleaning, asbestos abatement, reconstruction of the affected apartments, and loss of rent. She claimed burn damage to one unit and smoke damage requiring complete replacement of all the interior rooms of five apartments, along with removal of a portion of the stucco exterior and iron balcony railings and repainting of the entire building. 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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2011 Worst Year Ever for Home Sales

September 09, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

So few new single-family homes have sold in 2011 that expectations are that this will be the worst year for new homes sales since the Commerce Department started tracking this in 1963. The Harford Courant notes that previously builders created a new supply to which was added homes under foreclosure.

Ed Leamer, economist and director of UCLA’s Anderson Forecast, says that recovery would be driven by two sectors, manufacturing and construction. “It doesn’t look like there is going to be a big recovery in manufacturing,” he says. “It is going to have to come in housing.”

The soft housing market, however, is leading to a loss of construction jobs, as reported by the Associated General Contractors of America. As a result, stock prices for the twelve largest publicly-traded home builders have declined 22.7 percent in a market that has declined 4.2 percent overall.

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Better Building Rules Would Help U.K.'s Flooding Woes, CEP Says

January 06, 2016 — Jill Ward – Bloomberg
Tighter construction restrictions and incentives to build outside flood-prone areas would minimize damage to the U.K. economy from heavy rain and rising water levels, according to the Centre for Economic Performance. Thousands of families across northern England and Scotland have evacuated their homes or been left without power in recent weeks, while KPMG LLP estimated the economic loss in December was more than 5 billion pounds ($7.3 billion). While low-lying areas are more likely to be hit by large-scale floods, businesses and homes don’t tend to move to safer locations, according to the CEP’s analysis of data from 2003 to 2008. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jill Ward, Bloomberg

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Whose Employee is it Anyway?: Federal Court Finds No Coverage for Injured Subcontractor's Claim Based on Modified Employer's Liability Exclusion

September 28, 2020 — Jeffrey J. Vita & Kerianne E. Kane - Saxe Doernberger & Vita
In Nagog Real Estate Consulting Corp. v. Nautilus Insurance Co.,1 the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that an insurer had no duty to defend its insureds against claims brought by an injured subcontractor, based on an overbroad employer’s liability exclusion in the policy. Nautilus Insurance Company issued a commercial general liability policy to developer Nagog Homes LLC and its related construction company, Nagog Real Estate. The policy was endorsed with an Employer’s Liability Exclusion (the L205 Endorsement) that expanded the scope of the standard exclusion in the coverage form to include bodily injury claims of employees of “any” insured and their contractors or subcontractors, as opposed to simply the employees of the named insured. Nagog Homes was the developer, and Nagog Real Estate was the general contractor for a residential construction project. An employee of the framing subcontractor hired by Nagog Real Estate was injured while working on the project and sued both Nagog entities for his injuries. Nautilus, relying on the modified employer’s liability exclusion, denied coverage for the lawsuit based on allegations that the Nagog entities hired the framing subcontractor to perform work, which effectively made the plaintiff an employee of one or both of the Nagog entities. Reprinted courtesy of Jeffrey J. Vita , Saxe Doernberger & Vita and Kerianne E. Kane, Saxe Doernberger & Vita Mr. Vita may be contacted at jjv@sdvlaw.com Ms. Kane may be contacted at kek@sdvlaw.com Read the court decision
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Insured's Experts Excluded, But Insurer's Motion for Summary Judgment Denied

October 26, 2020 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
Despite barring the insured's expert witnesses from testifying as to the cause of the loss, lay witnesses were still available, making the district court's award of summary judgment to the insurer improper. Greater Hall Temple Church of God v. Southern Mut. Church Ins. Co., 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 21934 (11th Cir. July 15, 2020). Hurricane Matthew damaged the Greater Hall Temple Church of God's (Church) roof. Leaks occurred, causing water damage to the Church's interior. A claim was submitted to Southern Mutual. The policy did not cover loss caused by water. Nor did it cover loss to the interior of buildings unless the rain entered through openings made by a specified peril. An independent adjuster found that the damage was caused not by wind, but by pre-exisiting structural issues. Southern Mutual denied the claim. The Church filed suit. Southern Mutual moved for summary judgment and also moved to strike three of the Church's expert witnesses. The district court agreed that none of the witnesses could qualify as experts. Two of the witnesses did not have the requisite experience nor had they used a sufficiently reliable methodology formulating their opinions. A third expert was barred because his expert opinion had not been timely disclosed. Thereafter, Southern Mutual's motion for summary judgment was granted because the Church had not provided admissible evidence that damage to the Church's roof was caused by Hurricane Matthew. 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

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Wildfire Insurance Coverage Series, Part 7: How to Successfully Prepare, Submit and Negotiate the Claim

August 22, 2022 — Scott P. DeVries & Yosef Itkin - Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog
Prior posts in this series have discussed insurance coverage issues that pertain directly to wildfire claims, but we have not yet addressed how one proceeds following a loss. In this post in the Blog’s Wildfire Insurance Coverage Series, we discuss the preparation, submission and negotiation of the insurance claim. Preparing a Claim As different policies provide different timelines, where possible, it is advisable to submit the claim as soon as reasonably possible. Insurers commonly cite late submission as a basis for denial with jurisdictions varying on the import of “late” submission. Insurers have a right to reasonable docu­mentation of a claim before paying. Often, they will decline to consider a claim on its merits until such documentation is provided. The policy will specify whether to submit a hard copy or file online, but either way it is advisable to maintain a copy online or in a remote geographic location. Reprinted courtesy of Scott P. DeVries, Hunton Andrews Kurth and Yosef Itkin, Hunton Andrews Kurth Mr. DeVries may be contacted at sdevries@HuntonAK.com Mr. Itkin may be contacted at yitkin@HuntonAK.com Read the court decision
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Construction Bright Spot in Indianapolis

March 01, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

The downtown Indianapolis area is the site of about 85 major building projects that are from groundbreaking to just complete. The Indianapolis Star reports that the cumulative worth of the projects is about $3 billion, a level of construction that Indianapolis has seen only once before.



About thirty of the projects are residential. The main commercial project is a $754 million hospital building. The boom in downtown Indianapolis is not matched elsewhere, with the Indianapolis Star reporting that in the rest of Central Indiana, construction has slowed.

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Is Construction Heading Off the Fiscal Cliff?

December 20, 2012 — CDJ STAFF
After a period of growth, the construction industry lost 20,000 jobs in November, based on the federal jobs data. Damon Scott of New Mexico Business Weekly suggests that contractors may have laid off employees in anticipation of the “fiscal cliff.” Ken Simpson, the chief economist of the National Association of Home Builders said in a press release that “it is discouraging that construction employment is still struggling after three years of expansion in the overall economy.” Read the court decision
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