Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Meet the Forum's In-House Counsel: KATE GOLDEN

February 19, 2024 — Jessica Knox - The Dispute Resolver
Company: Mortenson Email: kate.golden@mortenson.com Website: www.mortenson.com College: University of Iowa (Bachelor of Science in Engineering, 1991) Graduate School: University of Minnesota (Master of Science in Civil Engineering, 1994) Law School: William Mitchell College of Law (now Mitchell | Hamline School of Law) (JD 1999) States Where Company Operates/Does Business: Mortenson is a national builder and developer with 13 regional office locations. Q: Describe your background and the path you took to becoming in-house counsel. A: In high school, I loved math and science, so I attended the University of Iowa College of Engineering and studied civil engineering, with a focus on environmental engineering. To practice environmental engineering at that time, you generally needed a master’s degree, so I attended the University of Minnesota, where my thesis for my degree program was “Organochlorines in Lake Michigan.” I then worked as an environmental engineer for a consulting firm called Montgomery Watson (now MWH) assisting clients with various environmental issues from air permitting to watershed reports to risk assessments of contaminated sites. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jessica Knox, Stinson LLP
Ms. Knox may be contacted at jessica.knox@stinson.com

Previously Owned U.S. Home Sales Rise to Eight-Month High

July 23, 2014 — Victoria Stilwell – Bloomberg
Sales (ETSLTOTL) of previously owned U.S. homes climbed in June to an eight-month high as more listings helped prices cool, luring buyers into the market. Sales increased 2.6 percent to a 5.04 million annual rate last month, led by gains in all four U.S. regions, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 78 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected sales would rise to a 4.99 million rate. Prices advanced at the slowest pace since March 2012 and inventories rose to an almost two-year high. Historically low interest rates and smaller price increases are helping bring homeownership within reach for more Americans. A pickup in employment opportunities that lead to faster wage growth would provide an added spark for a residential real-estate market that began to soften in the middle of 2013. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Victoria Stilwell, Bloomberg
Ms. Stilwell may be contacted at vstilwell1@bloomberg.net

Builders FirstSource to Buy ProBuild for $1.63 Billion

April 15, 2015 — Prashant Gopal – Bloomberg
Builders FirstSource Inc., a Dallas-based maker of materials for new homes, rose the most on record after saying it agreed to buy competitor ProBuild Holdings LLC for $1.63 billion. ProBuild, based in Denver, operates about 400 lumber and building product distribution, manufacturing and assembly centers serving 40 U.S. states, according to a statement Monday. The companies had 2014 combined revenue of $6.1 billion. Builders FirstSource surged 68 percent to $11.57. It was the biggest one-day gain ever for the shares, which began trading in June 2005. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Prashant Gopal, Bloomberg

Missouri Construction Company Sues Carpenter Union for Threatening Behavior

February 10, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to KMOV News, Raineri Construction Company in Missouri filed suit against the Local Carpenters’ District Council claiming employees had been “stalked and threatened” by the union. However, the Carpenters Union “denies the allegations” and said “it has the right to protest against a company that doesn’t always meet the union standards for pay and benefits.” Tony Raineri, one of the construction company’s executives, said to KMOV News: “For me it wasn’t such a big deal until they started making threats of bodily harm, started following me and my wife to our home, started following my employees to their homes.” KMOV News reported that a “union representative told News 4’s Craig Cheatham that no one acting on behalf of the Carpenters Union ever threatened, harassed or stalked Raineri, his employees or their clients.” Read the court decision
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Default, Fraud, and VCPA (Oh My!)

September 12, 2023 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
I’ve discussed the Virginia Consumer Protection Act (VCPA) and the interaction between fraud and contract on numerous occasions here at Construction Law Musings. A recent case from the Eastern District of Virginia District Court discusses this interaction (along with that dreaded default) further. In Bhutta v. DRM Construction Corp., the homeowners, the Bhuttas, sued DRM for breach of contract, conversion, fraud, and a violation of the VCPA. These allegations were based upon DRM having taken a $40,000.00 deposit from the Bhuttas and then failing to even begin work. As you may have guessed from the title of this post, DRM did not respond to the Complaint and the Court granted default. The Court then took up the question of whether the Bhuttas had alleged enough on each count for default judgment on those counts. After going through a procedural recitation and finding that DRM was properly served and that the Court had jurisdiction, the Court got to the meat of the matter. The Court held that the Bhuttas properly plead a breach of contract for the obvious reason. The reason was that DRM never performed any work and the Bhuttas were damaged because they both paid the deposit and also had to hire another contractor to complete the work at a higher price. The Court granted default judgment for breach of contract. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of The Law Office of Christopher G. Hill
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

Short on Labor, Israeli Builders Seek to Vaccinate Palestinians

February 01, 2021 — Ivan Levingston & Fadwa Hodali - Bloomberg
Israeli builders want the government to vaccinate Palestinian construction workers to help rally a battered housing industry. While Israel is racing to inoculate its citizens, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has no vaccination program in place. Beyond being a critical health issue, the gap is also an economic problem because the Israeli construction sector relies heavily on Palestinian workers who’ve been cut off repeatedly from building sites due to lockdowns. Before the pandemic, about 65,000 Palestinians worked for Israeli contractors inside Israel, accounting for a third of their workforce. Closures and restrictions on both sides led to a 30% drop in housing starts despite rising demand. Reprinted courtesy of Ivan Levingston, Bloomberg and Fadwa Hodali, Bloomberg Read the court decision
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It Has Started: Supply-Chain, Warehouse and Retail Workers of Essential Businesses Are Filing Suit

June 22, 2020 — Robert G. Devine, James Burger & Douglas Weck - White and Williams LLP
Supply-chain businesses that are appropriately characterized as “essential” have remained open for the delivery of critical supplies while everyone else has been told to close up shop and stay home. Now essential-business employees are contracting COVID-19 and filing suit. Following up on our earlier piece — “Is a Violation of a COVID-19 Order the Basis For Civil Liability?” — it is important to recognize that government directives, oftentimes couched as “recommendations,” can come to define what it means to provide a reasonably safe workplace that protects employees from COVID-19. While common law negligence defenses consider the reasonableness of conduct, these directives will likely become the standard. The cases that have been filed are overwhelmingly premised upon the timeless negligence construct. The negligence construct, simply put, imposes a duty to act as a reasonable person would under the circumstances. Nonetheless, while the negligence construct lives in the ordinary world of “reasonableness,” infection-control guidance lives in the rapidly developing world of the science of COVID-19. Guidance on seemingly basic questions, such as the methods of transmission (e.g., personal contact, mucus membrane only, airborne transmission) or even the virus’s shelf life on different surfaces, of particular interest packaging and material handling equipment, can change by the day. All of this provides challenges for the supply-side business looking to protect its workforce. Reprinted courtesy of White and Williams LLP attorneys James Burger, Robert Devine and Douglas Weck Mr. Burger may be contacted at burgerj@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Devine may be contacted at deviner@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Weck may be contacted at weckd@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Action Needed: HB24-1230 Spells Trouble for Colorado Construction Industry and its Insurers

March 25, 2024 — David McLain - Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC
In an apparent gift to plaintiffs’ construction defect lawyers, Representatives Parenti and Bacon introduced House Bill 24-1230 on February 12, 2024. The bill was assigned to the House Judiciary Committee and is scheduled for hearing on March 6th, during the afternoon session beginning at 1:30 pm. To date, the bill does not have any senate sponsors, perhaps because the senators are more interested in serving their constituents’ needs for attainable housing than in lining the pockets of their plaintiffs’ construction defect attorney friends. According to the bill’s summary, HB 24-1230 contains the following provisions: Current law declares void any express waivers of or limitations on the legal rights or remedies provided by the “Construction Defect Action Reform Act” or the “Colorado Consumer Protection Act.” Sections 1 and 4 make it a violation of the “Colorado Consumer Protection Act” to obtain or attempt to obtain a waiver or limitation that violates the aforementioned current law. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David McLain, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell
Mr. McLain may be contacted at mclain@hhmrlaw.com

FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES