Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Alabama Court Determines No Coverage For Insured's Faulty Workmanship

June 28, 2013 — Tred Eyerly
The Alabama Supreme Court found there was no coverage for the insured cabinet maker for claims arising from alleged faulty workmanship. Shane Traylor Cabinetmaker, L.L.C. v. Am. Resources Ins. Co., Inc., 2013 Ala. LEXIS 42 (May 3, 2013). The insured was sued by a homeowner for property damage caused by faulty workmanship. The insurer refused to defend, contending there was no "occurrence." The trial court granted summary judgment to the insurer. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred Eyerly
Tred Eyerly can be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

Florida Federal Court to Examine Issues of Alleged Arbitrator Conflicts of Interests in Panama Canal Case

May 24, 2021 — Sarah B. Biser & Philip Z. Langer - ConsensusDocs
The parties in a $238-million dispute over the construction of the third set of locks for the Panama Canal are raising issues concerning alleged conflicts of interest on the part of the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”) arbitrators in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.[2] The case may address rarely litigated issues concerning whether arbitrators who sit on multiple arbitration panels together or who support appointment of each other to lead arbitration panels have disabling conflicts of interest. The case pits Grupo Unidos por el Canal, S.A. (“Grupo”), a consortium of Spanish, Italian, Belgian, and Panamanian construction firms, against Autoridad del Canal de Panama (“ACP”), the Panamanian entity that operates the Panama Canal and that sponsored the multi-billion-dollar, decade-long project to expand the Canal’s capacity by building a new set of locks (the “Project”). The current dispute (the “Panama 1 Arbitration”), which centers on the suitability of the rock coming from the excavations to be used to produce concrete aggregates for the Project, was arbitrated before a three-member ICC Tribunal and resulted in a $238-million award to ACP and against Grupo. The ICC Tribunal reversed a decision of the dispute review board established in the parties’ contract. Reprinted courtesy of Sarah B. Biser, Fox Rothschild LLP and Philip Z. Langer, Fox Rothschild LLP Ms. Biser may be contacted at sbiser@foxrothschild.com Mr. Langer may be contacted at planger@foxrothschild.com Read the court decision
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California Imposes New Disabled Access Obligations on Commercial Property Owners

October 07, 2016 — Garret Murai – California Construction Law Blog
The following article was written by my colleague David Goldman on the new ADA accessibility legislation which was signed into law this past month by Governor Brown. Since July 1, 2013, California Civil Code section 1938 has required commercial property owners to disclose in every commercial lease whether the property being leased has been inspected by a Certified Access Specialist (“CASp”). A CASp is an individual certified by the State of California as qualified and knowledgeable of construction-related access to public accommodations by persons with disabilities. In addition to disclosing whether or not the property being leased has been CASp inspected, if a CASp inspection has occurred, the commercial lessor must disclose in the lease whether the premises has or has not met all the applicable construction-related accessibility standards established by law. These lease requirements, along with other disability access obligations, were discussed in an earlier article written in 2012. 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

Thank You for 18 Straight Years in the Virginia Legal Elite in Construction Law

December 31, 2024 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
Thank you once again to those in the Virginia legal community who elected me to the Virginia Business Legal Elite in the Construction Law category for the 18th consecutive year. The 18 consecutive years of election to the Legal Elite in the Construction Category span my nearly 15 years as a solo construction attorney. The fact that you all have continued to elect “100%” of the lawyers at The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, PC for the last 14 years is most gratifying and only confirms that my decision to “go solo” over 14 years ago was a good one. To be included in this list of top construction attorneys is both humbling and gratifying. For the complete list of the Virginia construction lawyers who were elected along with me, see the 2024 Virginia Business Legal Elite in Construction Law. 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

To Catch a Thief

March 06, 2023 — Christopher Durso - Construction Executive
Tony Rader calls it “peeling back the onion”—the slow, methodical process of uncovering the full extent of an embezzlement scam that eventually totaled more than $1 million. What National Roofing Partners (NRP) first discovered was bad enough. The Coppell, Texas–headquartered company, which oversees a nationwide network of nearly 250 commercial roofing contractors, learned in 2018 that a South Texas firm called Statewide Texas Roofing was billing clients for work on behalf of NRP and pocketing all the money. It turned out to be a scheme masterminded by NRP’s then-president, who created Statewide, staffed the company with his kids and used phony work orders to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in client fees from NRP. He’d been president for six years and with the company since it was created in 2007. It was a huge betrayal—and still just the tip of the iceberg. “Initially, we thought it was only half a million [dollars] or so,” says Tony Rader, NRP’s chief operating officer. “But I’ll never forget, [Chief Executive Officer] Steve [Little] and I were talking over a bourbon one night, and that’s when I told him, ‘I’ve seen this once before, and this is like an onion. You’ve only peeled off the outer layers. We’re going to be finding stuff for a year, and it’s just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.’ He said, ‘You think?’ And I said, ‘Oh, I’m pretty sure.’” Rader was all too correct. Working with a third-party forensic accountant, NRP found that not only were its then-chief financial officer and several other employees involved in the scheme, but the president had also abused his corporate credit card, racking up personal charges going back to 2013—on luxury vacations, expensive dinners, clothes, jewelry, even his daughter’s destination wedding in Jamaica. The final tally on his scams: $1.4 million. Reprinted courtesy of Christopher Durso, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the court decision
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How Palm Beach Balances Mansion Politics Against Climate Change

July 05, 2021 — Amanda L. Gordon - Bloomberg
It feels like a precipice moment for Palm Beach, a Florida town in the throes of a waterfront mansion-building mania just as the impacts of climate change start pushing in. At the town council’s regular meeting this past week, officials talked about the need to raise the grade of a beloved bike trail—and, at the same time, somehow add height to the privately-owned seawalls running alongside it. Raising both together would help preserve views and accessibility. But if individual sections of the public bikeway and the mansion-fronting seawalls are raised piecemeal and go out of sync, it would weaken the defense against flooding and make for uneven pedaling. As the town’s director of public works Paul Brazil put it, “We don't want our bike trail to become a mountain bike trail.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Amanda L. Gordon, Bloomberg

Pollution Exclusion Found Ambiguous

May 23, 2022 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The Mississippi Supreme Court found the pollution exclusion ambiguous under the facts presented. Omega Protein, Inc. v. Evanston Ins. Co., 2022 Miss. LEXIS 90 (Miss. March 31, 2022). Omega Protein, Inc., entered a contract with Ascu-fab to perform welding and other fabrication work at their facility. Accu-fab was required to have CGL coverage naming Omega as an additional insured. Accu-fab purchased a $1 million primer policy from Colony Insurance Company and a $5 million excess policy issued by Evanston Insurance Company. Accu-fab performed welding and other fabrication work on a large metal storage tank used for the temporary storage of stickwater, which was a liquid composed of water, fish oil, and fish solids. An explosion occurred at the Omega plant while Accu-fab workers were welding and grinding on a large metal tank that was used for the temporary storage of stickwater. One of Accu-fab's workers , Jerry Lee Tayler, was killed, another was seriously injured, and still others suffered less serous injuries. 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

Drought Dogs Developers in California's Soaring Housing Market

September 17, 2015 — John Gittelsohn – Bloomberg
California’s already tight housing market is facing another long-term complication: drought. The state’s dry spell is creating challenges for developers at a time when home prices are soaring because of limited inventory. The metropolitan areas of San Jose, San Francisco and San Diego had the nation’s biggest gap between the number of new jobs and residential building permits from 2012 to 2014, according to a report Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors. Now the drought, into its fourth year, stands to curb affordability further. “It’s contributing to price appreciation by restricting supply,” said Mark Boud, founder of Real Estate Economics, a housing-consulting firm based in Irvine, California. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of John Gittelsohn, Bloomberg

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