FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

NY Supreme Court Rules City Not Liable for Defective Sidewalk

February 12, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Eileen N. Fanning sued the city of Watertown, New York after incurring injuries from a fall on a sidewalk on Court Street, according to the Watertown Daily Times. A state Supreme Court judge dismissed the lawsuit. According to Fanning as reported by the Watertown Daily Times, the plaintiff “fell on an uneven section of sidewalk” and “suffered multiple broken bones in her hand, as well as neurological damage to her arm, among other injuries.” She claimed that the damage is permanent. The lawsuit involved Purcell Construction (the landscape pavers), Neighbors of Watertown (a renovation project), and the city of Watertown. The judge ruled that “Neighbors of Watertown was not liable for her injuries because the agency neither owned nor controlled the property where the injuries occurred and therefore ‘did not owe a duty of care’ to users of the walk as it was not responsible for the sidewalk’s maintenance.” The city was not held liable “because it had received no prior written notice about the alleged defective condition of the property.” Furthermore, the judge “agreed with Purcell Construction’s claim that the area claimed to be defective is ‘one little section’ of sidewalk ‘over which the public walked’ for nearly 20 years.” Read the court decision
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AB 685 and COVID-19 Workplace Exposure: New California Notice and Reporting Requirements of COVID Exposure Starting January 1, 2021

February 01, 2021 — Sewar K. Sunnaa & Nathan A. Cohen - Peckar & Abramson, P.C.
SUMMARY Effective January 1, 2021, a new California law requires employers to notify employees about possible or known exposure to COVID-19 at the workplace. The law requires actual notification to employees within one day. In addition, the law requires notifications to local public health authorities of a COVID-19 outbreak. The law also gives Cal/OSHA a new emergency police power to issue Orders Prohibiting Use (“OPU”), permitting Cal/OSHA to close workplaces that constitute an imminent hazard to employees due to COVID-19. ANALYSIS AND GUIDANCE On January 1, 2021, a new California law took effect, which will enforce stringent new mandatory protocols governing notification of employees of COVID-19 exposures in the workplace. Until now, federal agencies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) and state agencies such as the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“Cal/OSHA”) have released guidance to help employers navigate employee training, workplace surveillance and temperature-taking, among many other issues, that have arisen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning January 1st, the new law places mandatory notice requirements of COVID-19 contact on all public and private employers under Labor Code Section 6409.6, with two exceptions: (1) health facilities, as defined in Section 1250 of the Health and Safety Code and (2) employees whose regular duties include COVID-19 testing or screening, or who provide patient care to individuals who are known or suspected to have COVID-19. Reprinted courtesy of Sewar K. Sunnaa, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. and Nathan A. Cohen, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. Ms. Sunnaa may be contacted at ssunnaa@pecklaw.com Mr. Cohen may be contacted at ncohen@pecklaw.com Read the court decision
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Retrofitting Buildings Is the Unsexy Climate Fix the World Needs

November 19, 2021 — Marc Champion - Bloomberg
You may not have noticed unless you live in London, but protesters have been gluing their hands to the asphalt of the city’s thundering eight-lane M25 ring road, to the weirdly technocratic war cry of “Insulate Britain!” Frustrated commuters and the police officers who’ve had to peel these sticky activists from the road find them irritating. Yet they have a point. Among top producers of climate-harming emissions that world leaders plan to address at COP26 in Glasgow in November, buildings are the summit’s largely ignored Cinderella. Making homes and offices leak less heat and persuading the construction industry to give up its addiction to demolition and to energy-intensive materials such as concrete, plastics, and steel have so far proved less than appealing to governments in search of solutions to the climate challenge. Retrofitting is costly and disruptive for the voters who happen to live, in the U.K. alone, in the 28 million homes that need an upgrade. It also demands the systemic transformation of a fragmented industry that’s riddled with vested interests, says Stephen Good, chief executive of the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre along Glasgow’s southern underbelly. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Marc Champion, Bloomberg

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Safer Schools Rendered Unsafe Due to Construction Defects

February 10, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

Built on a program for safer school buildings, schools in Neenan County, Colorado have been shown to have mild-to-moderate structural problems, rendering some of them unsafe. The Denver Post reports that a third-party review of schools built by the Neenan Company has shown structural issues in all fifteen school buildings.



One school, Meeker Elementary, has been closed as it could collapse under high winds or during an earthquake. Sargent Junior-Senior High School is in use, but there are plans to evacuate the buildings if winds exceed 25 mile per hour. Two schools have roofs that are unable to bear expected loads of snow during the winter.



The Neenan Company says that the school buildings are not up to their standards and is working with the school districts to repair the buildings. Repairs are expected to be complete by August.

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Mandatory Energy Benchmarking is On Its Way

April 22, 2019 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
We have discussed the issue of benchmarking and energy reporting on several occasions here at Musings. As the January 18, 2010 issue of ENR Magazine discusses, now cities and states are getting on board in a big way. Washington, D.C. began requiring building owners to use the EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool on January 1, 2010 and New York City passed a similar measure in December. The D.C. law is the first to require mandatory public disclosure of energy performance. Such disclosure will create a public database of energy performance data. While I understand that this data and its reporting will create energy accountability in a way that non-disclosure of this data would not, the possibilities for misuse or uses that impact the construction world abound. This energy reporting is a step beyond that of the LEED program in that the data is not just reported to the USGBC, but to a public database. As such, the ease of access will impact contracts and contractors in an even bigger way than the USGBC requirements. 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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Interpreting Insurance Coverage and Exclusions: When Sudden means Sudden and EIFS means Faulty

June 15, 2020 — Ben Volpe - Colorado Construction Litigation Blog
EIFS, or Exterior Insulation and Finish System, is an integrated exterior insulation and synthetic stucco system, praised for its energy efficiency.[1] However, EIFS has come to be well known in the construction defect world as placing homes at risk due to a lack of a built-in moisture management system. Before long, insurance companies recognized the risk and began explicitly excluding coverage for EIFS-related damage. However, EIFS exclusions have not always been so clearly set forth in some policies, causing insurance coverage litigation. Recently, a Greenwood Village couple, Mark and Susan Mock, lost this fight. Built in 1994, the Mocks’ home was constructed with an EIFS system. The Mocks carried a homeowner’s insurance policy through Allstate, which covered “sudden and accidental loss” to property, but excluded coverage for “planning, construction or maintenance” issues. Such “planning, construction or maintenance” exclusions included “faulty, inadequate or defective designs.” A few months after a hailstorm, the Mocks discovered moisture-related damage to their home’s EIFS system. They reported the damage to Allstate, but Allstate would not cover it, reasoning that the damage to the EIFS system was excluded as a design and/or construction failure, and thus not covered as a “sudden and accidental” loss. The experts who evaluated the damage concluded it was the result of inherent flaws in the EIFS systems common in the 1994 timeframe, which involved long term moisture intrusion behind the cladding and no means for the water to escape. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Benjamin Volpe, Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC
Mr. Volpe may be contacted at volpe@hhmrlaw.com

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When Do Hard-Nosed Negotiations Become Coercion? Or, When Should You Feel Unlucky?

October 21, 2019 — Stan Millan, Jones Walker, LLP - ConsensusDocs
Conflict in a negotiation is to be expected and is arguably healthy for the process. Owners and contractors are constantly engaged in negotiations; whether it be negotiating changes to the work, changes to the schedule, or changes to the contractual terms. But at what point does taking a strong position in a negotiation cross the line and become coercion or bad faith? A recent decision from the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals touched on this very issue. While this is a government contract case, the issues discussed in this case (namely negotiating a change) are routinely encountered in just about every construction project. This decision is instructive because it adds to a trending line of cases that limit an owner’s and contractor’s negotiation tactics. On August 5, 2019, the board issued an opinion in the appeal of Sand Point Services, LLC vs. NASA, ASBCA Nos. 6189. In Sand Point Services, the contractor was hired by the owner to repair the Wallops Flight Facility’s aircraft parking apron. During its work, the contractor hit a differing site condition, namely unsuitable soils. The contractor sought additional time and money for this differing site condition. The owner ultimately responded with a show cause letter to the contractor claiming, among other breaches, that the contractor was significantly behind schedule. This was generally viewed by all parties as the start of default proceedings against the contractor. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Stan Millan, Jones Walker, LLP
Mr. Millan may be contacted at smillan@joneswalker.com

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Standard Lifetime Shingle Warranties Aren’t Forever

April 03, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Olympia Construction’s roofing division explained to the web site Thurston Talk how long “lifetime” warranties on shingles really last. Your lifetime? You’re likely to live out the effective period of your lifetime shingle warranty. They note that 100% coverage of the shingle replacement typically lasts only for ten years (and does not cover removal of the existing defective shingles). After that, coverage continues to decline without covering any of the labor. And this can be significant, since they noted that they have seen cases in which a batch of defective shingles means that every home on the block has a defect claim. Read the court decision
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