Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Contractor Sues License Board

June 30, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

Judge Kendall J. Newman of the US District Court handed down a decision on June 24 on the case of Kent v California Department of Consumer Affairs. Mr. Kent, appearing as his own counsel, had brought the suit against the California Department of Consumer Affairs and the Contractors State Licensing Board after he was arrested in a sting operation and, as the plaintiff put it, “was absurdly arrested and uncooperatively detained for a time longer than necessary or allowed by law under the false pretense of contracting with out a license.” Mr. Kent’s alleged that Rick Lopez, one of the defendants, formed him to read allow from the California Business and Professions Code. He said he was later handcuffed and placed in an uncomfortable chair, “enduring physical pain and emotional agony.”

Although Kent was given a Notice to Appear, he alleged that a further defendant, Stuart Rind, “closed the plaintiff’s case marked citation A7773 without giving written notice to anyone.” As a result, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office had no record of his Notice to Appear.

Kent alleged that subsequently his firm was essentially shut down for two years and that he was prevented from “legally contracting or selling services for any other contractor or qualifying for any other licensed capacity governed by the CSLB.” After this, the CSLB suspended the license for his firm, DSI Construction. He was assessed a $1,500 fine, after which he claims he sent a letter to the CSLB demanding money damages. The judge noted that the letter was not included in the plaintiff’s Ninth Amended Complaint.

Judge Kendall recommended that the plaintiff’s Complaints be dismissed, although he did allow that sixth, and perhaps the eighth and ninth, could be amended with a tenth amended complaint.

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DOI Aims to Modernize its “Inefficient and Inflexible” Type A Natural Resource Damages Assessment Regulations

March 25, 2024 — Amanda G. Halter, Jillian Marullo & Ashleigh Myers - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) published a proposed rule aimed at modernizing and streamlining the “Type A” Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) regulations under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA). (The comment deadline was later extended.) The revisions, first previewed in a January 2023 Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR), are intended to fulfill “the original statutory purpose of providing a streamlined and simplified assessment process” with the overarching goal of facilitating settlements and expediting restoration efforts following injury resulting from pollution in a broader range of cases. The NRDA regulations provide two paths to assessing natural resource damages (NRD): (1) the more complex, site-specific Type B procedures for detailed NRDAs and (2) what is intended to be the standard, simplified Type A assessment procedures requiring minimal field observation. Particularly, the Type A process is reserved for two specific aquatic environments (coastal and marine areas or Great Lakes environments) when a relatively minor release of a single hazardous substance occurs, resulting in a smaller scale and scope of natural resource injury, and the rebuttal presumption for the Type A procedure is limited to damages of $100,000 or less under the current version of the rule. Reprinted courtesy of Amanda G. Halter, Pillsbury, Jillian Marullo, Pillsbury and Ashleigh Myers, Pillsbury Ms. Halter may be contacted at amanda.halter@pillsburylaw.com Ms. Marullo may be contacted at jillian.marullo@pillsburylaw.com Ms. Myers may be contacted at ashleigh.myers@pillsburylaw.com Read the court decision
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Mind The Appeal Or: A Lesson From Auto-Owners Insurance Co. V. Bolt Factory Lofts Owners Association, Inc. On Timing Insurance Bad Faith And Declaratory Judgment Insurance Claims Following A Nunn-Agreement

August 06, 2019 — Jean Meyer - Colorado Construction Litigation
On May 30, 2019, Judge Richard Brooke Jackson of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado offered an insightful lesson to the parties in Auto-Owners Insurance Co. v. Bolt Factory Lofts Owners Association, Inc.[1] on the importance of ripeness in declaratory judgment insurance actions and bad faith counterclaims. The case arrived in front of Judge Jackson based on the following fact pattern. A homeowner association (Bolt Factory Lofts Owners Association, Inc.) (“Association”) brought construction defect claims against a variety of prime contractors and those contractors subsequently brought third-party construction defect claims against subcontractors. One of the prime contractors assigned their claims against a subcontractor by the name Sierra Glass Co., Inc. (“Sierra”) to the Association and all the other claims between all the parties settled. On the eve of trial involving only the Association’s assigned claims against Sierra, the Association made a settlement demand on Sierra for $1.9 million. Sierra asked its insurance carrier, Auto-Owners Insurance, Co. (“AOIC”), which had been defending Sierra under a reservation of rights letter, to settle the case for that amount, but AOIC refused. This prompted Sierra to enter into a “Nunn-Agreement” with the Association whereby the case would proceed to trial, Sierra would refrain from offering a defense at trial, the Association would not pursue any recovery against Sierra for the judgment, and Sierra would assign any insurance bad faith claims it may have had against AOIC to the Association. (“Nunn-Agreement”) Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jean Meyer, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC
Mr. Meyer may be contacted at meyer@hhmrlaw.com

Recent Third Circuit OSHA Decision Sounds Alarm for Employers and Their Officers

October 14, 2019 — John Baker - White and Williams LLP
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion that should serve as a warning not only to employers, but to their corporate officers. The case against Altor, Inc., a New Jersey-based construction company, began in 2012 when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) directed Altor and its sole director and officer to pay a $412,000 penalty (Payment Order) to OSHA for several violations, including the failure to comply with fall protection standards. The company refused to pay, arguing that it did not possess sufficient assets. The Secretary of Labor filed a Petition for Civil Contempt against Altor and its President, Vasilios Saites. The court acknowledged that the company and Mr. Saites could defend against a contempt finding by showing that he and the company were unable to comply with the Payment Order. Beyond merely stating that they could not pay, the court required that they must show that they made good faith efforts to comply with the Order. After considering all of the evidence, the court ultimately relied on Altor’s bank records, which reflected that the company ended each month during a two-year period after the violations with a positive bank balance. Thus, the court determined that Altor could have made “at least relatively modest” payments and emphasized that the company never attempted to negotiate a reduced sum or a payment plan. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of John Baker, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Baker may be contacted at bakerj@whiteandwilliams.com

Expanded Virginia Court of Appeals Leads to Policyholder Relief

January 29, 2024 — Michael S. Levine & Olivia G. Bushman - Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog
Exercising its newly expanded jurisdiction that now permits Virginia’s intermediate appellate courts to hear insurance coverage disputes, the Court of Appeals recently reversed a lower court decision that allowed a two-year “Suits Against Us” provision to serve as a basis for an insurer’s refusal to reimburse repair and replacement costs incurred more than two years after the date of loss. Bowman II v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., Record No. 1256-22-3 (Nov. 21, 2023). CAV (unpublished opinion). In the proceeding below, the circuit court found no justiciable controversy and dismissed the complaint where repairs to the policyholder’s fire-damaged home continued more than two years after the date of the fire. The circuit court relied on a two-year limitation in the policy that governed the period within which the policyholder must bring suit against the insurer. Reprinted courtesy of Michael S. Levine, Hunton Andrews Kurth and Olivia G. Bushman, Hunton Andrews Kurth Mr. Levine may be contacted at mlevine@HuntonAK.com Ms. Bushman may be contacted at obushman@HuntonAK.com Read the court decision
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Hawaii Supreme Court Bars Insurers from Billing Policyholders for Uncovered Defense Costs

April 23, 2024 — Amanda C. Stefanatos - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Across the country, there is a split in authority as to whether an insurance company should be allowed to recoup defense costs where it is ultimately determined that the carrier has no duty to defend under the policy and the policy is silent as to such reimbursement. The Hawaii Supreme Court is the latest to enter the fray to address this very question, ruling in favor of policyholders in the recent case of St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Company v. Bodell Construction Company. Facts of the Case and Procedural History The Bodell case arose in response to a pair of certified questions from the US District Court for Hawaii to the Hawaii Supreme Court. The case involved a group of primary and excess insurers that sold liability policies to Bodell Construction and sought reimbursement of defense costs that the insurers had paid to defend a construction defect claim against Bodell. In the Underlying Action, the District Court ultimately ruled that the claims against Bodell Construction were not covered under the policies. Because the claims were not covered, the insurers demanded reimbursement of the defense fees from Bodell . Having determined there was no Hawaii state law on this issue, and in light of conflicting decisions in the district courts, the US District Court for Hawaii requested guidance from the Hawaii Supreme Court. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Amanda C. Stefanatos, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Ms. Stefanatos may be contacted at AStefanatos@sdvlaw.com

Zombie Foreclosures Plaguing Various Cities in the U.S.

July 16, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Many homeowners are simply abandoning their homes before banks have completed the foreclosure process, according to USA Today. Banks are not always in a hurry to take ownership of property, and often will wait until they are ready to dispose of it before doing so: “There are two primary things that can factor into their decision," Eric Eckardt, vice president and general manager of Hubzu.com, told the Mail Tribune. "One, they may have a surplus of REO properties they're trying to move off the balance sheet. The second is, costs associated with foreclosure may be greater than the value. At the end of the day, it's really a case-by-case matter.” USA Today reported that “[t]he length of the entire foreclosure process is a major contributor to vacancy rates because homeowners are more likely to give up on their homes the longer they have to wait for a resolution.” These abandoned homes may have a negative impact on sales of neighboring homes, according to the Mail Tribune. Gary Poulos, a retired Harry & David systems engineer, lives next door to a ‘zombie foreclosure,’ and spent a year trying to get maintenance work completed on the neighboring property so that he could be in a position to sell his own. He created a blog about his experience (myneighborchasebank.blogspot.com). Big Builder analyzed May 2014 data from CoreLogic, and identified the five states with the highest foreclosure inventory: New Jersey, Florida, New York, Hawaii, and Maine. While the five states with the lowest foreclosure inventory were Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Minnesota. Read the full story, USA Today... Read the full story, Big Builder... Read the full story, Mail Tribune... Read the court decision
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Home Builder Doesn’t See Long Impact from Hurricane

November 07, 2012 — CDJ STAFF
No one needs to tell Toll Brothers about the impact of Hurricane Sandy. The Wall Street Journal reports that the home building company lost power as a result of the storm. Martin Connor, the company’s CFO, told the Journal that he did not expect the hurricane to have a big effect on sales. Luckily for the company, many of its large projects are either sufficiently completed to provide shelter or too early in the process to be affected by the storm. “This type of weather event has limited impact on the market. It may move settlements later, and may defer people a weekend or two until they go out shopping. But it doesn’t have a long impact.” Read the court decision
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