FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Proving Contractor Licensure in California. The Tribe Has Spoken

October 21, 2015 — Garret Murai – California Construction Law Blog
As I mentioned in an earlier post, in California you must “prove” you’re a licensed contractor in a construction case. But in whose hands are you entitled to place your fate – the judge or the jury? Well, the tribe has spoken. Jeff Tracy, Inc. v. City of Pico Rivera In Jeff Tracy, Inc. v. City of Pico Rivera, Case Nos. B258563 and B258648, California Court of Appeals for the Second District (September 15, 2015), general contractor Jeff Tracy, Inc. doing business as Land Forms Construction (“Land Forms”) was walloped with a nearly $5.5 million judgment for being improperly licensed on a park project owned by the City of Pico Rivera (“City”). The judgment followed a bench trial over Land Form’s objection that it was entitled to a jury trial. 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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Signs of a Slowdown in Luxury Condos

January 28, 2015 — Prashant Gopal, Oshrat Carmiel and John Gittelsohn – Bloomberg
Manhattan real estate agent Lisa Gustin listed a four-bedroom Tribeca loft for $7.45 million in October, expecting a quick sale. Instead, she cut the price by $550,000 in January. “I thought for sure a foreign buyer would come in,” says Gustin, a broker at Brown Harris Stevens who is still marketing the 3,800-square-foot apartment. “So many new condos are coming up right now. They’ve been building them for the past few years, and now they’re really hurting the resales.” New high-priced condominiums and mansions are hitting the market in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles just as international buyers, who helped fuel luxury demand in the three cities, are seeing their purchasing power wane with the strengthening dollar. Signs of a pullback may already be showing in Manhattan, where luxury-home sales have slowed amid a boom in the construction of towers aimed at U.S. millionaires and foreign investors. Sales of homes costing more than $2 million in the New York area rose 10 percent last year, compared with a 27 percent jump in 2013, according to CoreLogic DataQuick. Reprinted courtesy of Bloomberg reporters Prashant Gopal, Oshrat Carmiel and John Gittelsohn Mr. Gittlesohn may be contacted at johngitt@bloomberg.net; Ms. Carmiel may be contacted at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net; Mr. Gopal may be contacted at pgopal2@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
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Re-Thinking the One-Sided Contract: Considerations for a More Balanced Approach to Contracting

November 21, 2022 — William Underwood - ConsensusDocs
Construction projects can be inherently risky – often there are multiple parties (owners, architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, consultants, vendors, government officials, sureties, insurers, and many others), unforeseen site conditions, tangled supply chains, acts of God, inadequate funding, site safety matters, and a whole host of other issues that can make even a relatively straight-forward job complex. Parties necessarily want to minimize their individual risk to the greatest extent possible on construction projects. And to do so, they may seek to push as much risk as possible onto the other side through one-sided terms in their construction contract.   But is an entirely one-sided contract the best way to mitigate risk? In many instances, the answer is no. Every contract is different – and many considerations should be taken into account when drafting and negotiating contracts – but entirely one-sided can often have unintended consequences and create risks that otherwise might not exist in a contract that allocates and balances risk more equally across the parties. This article reviews several considerations (although it is not an exhaustive list) for avoiding one-sided contracts, including some of the benefits created through the use of equitable contract clauses. And for context, some examples of one-sided contract clauses include no relief for other contractor/owner-caused delays; no relief for force majeure events; no relief for unforeseen site conditions; and broad form indemnification clauses (i.e. one party assumes the obligation to pay for another party’s liability even if the other party is solely at fault). Again, this is a non-exhaustive list, and many other standard contract provisions can be altered to become one-sided. But the general premise of a “one-sided contract clause” is that it shifts all risk, obligation, and liability to one party. And this article examines why that might not be the best idea.   Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of William Underwood, Jones Walker LLP
Mr. Underwood may be contacted at wunderwood@joneswalker.com

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April Rise in Construction Spending Not That Much

June 28, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
April saw an increase in construction spending that didn’t even break a half of a percent with just a 0.4% increase, although that’s better than March’s slight decrease of 0.8%, Both government and residential construction spending dropped, although government spending dropped only 1.2% and residential a miniscule 0.1%. This was slightly more than offset by the modest 2.2% increase in residential spending. Although the April gains were modest, they come after the first year to increase after five years of decline. Read the court decision
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Federal District Court Continues to Find Construction Defects do Not Arise From An Occurrence

May 10, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

Coverage for construction defects continues to be hotly contested in Hawaii state and federal courts. In a recent decision, Judge Mollway felt bound to follow the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Burlington Ins. Co. v. Oceanic Design & Constr., Inc., 383 F.3d 940, 944 (9th Cir. 2004), where the court found construction defect claims arise from breach of contract, not from an occurrence. Judge Mollway’s most recent decision on the issue is Illinois Nat. Ins. Co. v. Nordic PCL Constr., Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58464 (D. Haw. April 26, 2012).



Nordic constructed a grocery store for Safeway. In addition to the grocery store, Nordic built a 165-space rooftop parking deck, retail shops and related improvements. After opening for business in 2007, Safeway experienced significant leaks. Safeway demanded that Nordic repair the parking deck. Nordic sent the demand letter to the insurer, who agreed to appoint counsel subject to a reservation of rights.



Safeway filed suit against Nordic in state court alleging, among other things, breach of contract and negligence. The insurer provided Nordic with a defense, but Nordic hired independent counsel.



The insurer filed for declaratory relief in federal district court.



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Fracking Fears Grow as Oklahoma Hit by More Earthquakes Than California

July 09, 2014 — Zain Shauk – Bloomberg
Squinting into a laptop perched on the back of his pickup, Austin Holland searches for a signal from a coffee-can-sized sensor buried under the grassy prairie. Holland, Oklahoma’s seismology chief, is determined to find the cause of an unprecedented earthquake epidemic in the state. And he suspects pumping wastewater from oil and gas drilling back into the Earth has a lot to do with it. “If my research takes me to the point where we determine the safest thing to do is to shut down injection -- and consequently production -- in large portions of the state, then that’s what we have to do,” Holland said. “That’s for the politicians and the regulators to work out.” So far this year, Oklahoma has had more than twice the number of earthquakes as California, making it the most seismically active state in the continental U.S. As recently as 2003, Oklahoma was ranked 17th for earthquakes. That shift has given rise to concern among communities and environmentalists that injecting vast amounts of wastewater back into the ground is contributing to the rise in Oklahoma’s quakes. The state pumps about 350,000 barrels of oil a day, making it the fifth largest producer in the U.S. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Zain Shauk, Bloomberg
Mr. Shauk may be contacted at zshauk@bloomberg.net

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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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Tesla Finishes First Solar Roofs—Including Elon's House

August 02, 2017 — Tom Randall - Bloomberg
First the Model 3 electric car. Now the solar roof. In just one week, Tesla has challenged two distinct industries with radically new products. Tesla has completed its first solar roof installations, the company reported Wednesday as part of a second-quarter earnings report. Just like the first Model 3 customers, who took their keys last week, the first solar roof customers are Tesla employees. By selling to them first, Tesla says it hopes to work out any kinks in the sales and installation process before taking it to a wider public audience. “I have them on my house, JB has them on his house,” Musk said, referring to Tesla’s Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel. “This is version one. I think this roof is going to look really knock-out as we just keep iterating.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tom Randall, Bloomberg

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