Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Foreman in Fatal NYC Trench Collapse Gets Jail Sentence

December 21, 2016 — Mary B. Powers – Engineering News-Record
Wilmer Cueva, a construction foreman for Queens, N.Y.-based excavation subcontractor Sky Materials, was sentenced on Dec. 15 to up to three years in prison for causing the death of 22-year-old worker Carlos Moncayo, and endangering other workers at a lower Manhattan retail project site. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said the workers were in an unprotected 13-ft trench that collapsed in 2015. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Mary B. Powers, Engineering News-Record
ENR may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com

Fixing the Problem – Not the Blame

November 30, 2016 — Curtis W. Martin – Peckar & Abramson, P.C. Bulletin
Who is responsible for defective design under Texas law? The contractor, under Lonergan? The owner, under Spearin? A recent Fifth Circuit decision suggests that in some cases this might be the wrong question when design responsibility is disputed. The appellate court recently remanded a case back to the district court to determine whether the contractor or owner breached an implied duty to cooperate in discovering defects in design and subsequently pricing the change required to correct the problem. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Curtis W. Martin, Peckar & Abramson, P.C.
Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin@pecklaw.com

Lauren Motola-Davis Honored By Providence Business News as a 2021 Leader & Achiever

August 04, 2021 — Lauren Motola-Davis - Lewis Brisbois
Providence Managing Partner Lauren Motola-Davis was recently named a 2021 Leader & Achiever by Providence Business News (PBN). Ms. Motola-Davis, along with 21 other honorees, will be recognized during an in-person ceremony on August 26 at 5:30 p.m. ET at the Aldrich Mansion in Warwick, Rhode Island. The Leaders & Achievers Award Program recognizes individuals for their notable success and strong leadership both in their fields and to the region. Honorees were chosen based on their long-standing commitment to the business community as well as a sustained demonstration of leading others, community service, and mentoring. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Lauren Motola-Davis, Lewis Brisbois
Ms. Motola-Davis may be contacted at Lauren.MotolaDavis@lewisbrisbois.com

Solar and Wind Just Passed Another Big Turning Point

October 21, 2015 — Tom Randall – Bloomberg
Wind power is now the cheapest electricity to produce in both Germany and the U.K., even without government subsidies, according to a new analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). It's the first time that threshold has been crossed by a G7 economy.1increase click area But that's less interesting than what just happened in the U.S. To appreciate what's going on there, you need to understand the capacity factor. That's the percentage of a power plant's maximum potential that's actually achieved over time. Consider a solar project. The sun doesn't shine at night and, even during the day, varies in brightness with the weather and the seasons. So a project that can crank out 100 megawatt hours of electricity during the sunniest part of the day might produce just 20 percent of that when averaged out over a year. That gives it a 20 percent capacity factor. One of the major strengths of fossil fuel power plants is that they can command very high and predictable capacity factors. The average U.S. natural gas plant, for example, might produce about 70 percent of its potential (falling short of 100 percent because of seasonal demand and maintenance). But that's what's changing, and it's a big deal. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tom Randall, Bloomberg

CDJ’s #5 Topic of the Year: Beacon Residential Community Association v. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, et al.

December 31, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Steven M. Cvitanovic and Whitney L. Stefko of Haight Brown & Bonesteel analyzed the Beacon decision, and discussed how it affects developers and general contractors: “On July 3, 2014, the California Supreme Court (the “Court”) came out with its decision in Beacon Residential Community Association v. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, et al. The Beacon decision settled a long-standing dispute in California about whether design professionals such as architects and engineers owe a duty to non-client third parties. In finding that the plaintiffs in Beacon could state a claim against the architects of the Beacon project, the Court also sowed the seeds of change in the way contracts are structured between developers, architects, engineers, and even general contractors.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of

Creative Avenue for Judgment Creditor to Collect a Judgment

October 27, 2016 — David Adelstein – Florida Construction Legal Updates
I have a judgment against another entity. Now what? I want to briefly talk about this “now what?” in the context of the recent decision in MYD Marine Distributor, Inc. v. International Paint, Ltd., 41 Fla. L. Weekly D2364a (Fla. 4th DCA 2016). Although this case is not a construction case, it poses an interesting issue for any entity that has a judgment entered against it (known as the judgment debtor) while it is contemporaneously the plaintiff and pursuing monetary damages in an unrelated case or cases. This case also presents an avenue for any judgment creditor to pursue in the event other post-judgment collection efforts are unsuccessful. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Katz, Barron, Squitero, Faust, Friedberg, English & Allen, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@katzbarron.com

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

Be Careful with Good Faith Payments

February 24, 2020 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
Sometimes doing the expedient thing and what looks good at the time can come back to bite you. Just ask 3M Company. In Faneuil, Inc. v. 3M Co., the Virginia Supreme Court considered a customer services subcontract between Faneuil and 3M relating to a toll collection contract 3M entered into with ERC. The subcontract had a “pay if paid” clause in it requiring payment to 3M from ERC before ERC was required to pay Faneuil, a written change order provision and a base monthly payment to Faneuil for the services that could be reduced in the event of less than expected toll collections. Further, the subcontract stated that if either party settled 3rd party claims, that settlement would not bind the other party to the subcontract absent consent or Court order. Faneuil was then alleged to have been required to provide “Special Services” relating to manual identification of license plates and other information necessary for toll billing due to 3M’s alleged failure to provide adequate imaging services. Faneuil requested (without written change order) and 3M promised to pay extra for these services. When 3M was slow to pay for the special services, Faneuil did what you would expect and threatened to stop providing them. Instead of contesting the right to the work, 3m made sporadic “good faith” payments to induce continued Special Services from Faneuil. Eventually 3M’s issues caused ERC to stop payments and thus 3M stopped paying Faneuil. 3M then settled the payment claims with ERC and still failed to pay Faneuil. 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

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