Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Haight Celebrates 2024 New Partner Promotions!

January 22, 2024 — Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
Haight is celebrating new partner promotions in 2024. Congratulations to Gary LaHendro, Melvin Marcia and Philip McDermott! Gary LaHendro became a member of the California State Bar in December 1993. He is a member of the Risk Management & Insurance Law Practice Group. He focuses his practice on insurance coverage and bad faith litigation. Gary’s clients include carriers within the United States and London Markets for whom he has provided coverage advice on various lines of coverage, including commercial general liability, excess, errors and omissions, auto, and representations and warranties. Gary also monitors the defense of insureds with respect to third-party lawsuits. In addition to coverage work, Gary has over 20 years of litigation experience as lead defense counsel on cases involving soil and groundwater contamination, professional liability, construction defect and personal injury cases. He is also a skilled appellate attorney and Certified Mediator. Melvin Marcia became a member of the California State Bar on June 1, 2016. Melvin is a member of the firm’s Transportation Law, General Liability, Product Liability and Fire Litigation Practice Groups. His practice focuses on litigation of high value cases, ranging from catastrophic injury, wrongful death, premises liability, business disputes, product liability, uninsured/underinsured arbitrations and subrogation matters. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP

Issue and Claim Preclusion When Forced to Litigate Similar Issues in Different Forums: White River Village, LLP v. Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland

October 10, 2013 — Brady Iandiorio — Higgins, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC.
Often in construction litigation the parties wish to move the case to arbitration. However, there are certain circumstances in which such change of litigation forums should be carefully analyzed. The case of White River Village, LLP v. Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland, serves as an example of one of those circumstances. In March 2013, U.S. District Court Judge Blackburn ruled on a motion for summary judgment filed by Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland (“F&D”). The order grants the motion in part and denies it in part. White River Village, LLP (“White River”) was the owner of the project which hired S&S Joint Venture (“S&S”), the contractor, to build two similar developments, directly adjacent to each other. The contracts between Whiter River and S&S for the two projects were so substantially similar that the court referred to them as the S&S Contracts. F&D issued payment and performance bonds guarantying the obligations of S&S under the S&S Contracts. After S&S defaulted on the construction contracts, F&D, as the surety, undertook to complete performance on the contracts. White River alleged that F&D was liable for construction defects and delays in completing the project, and failed to fulfill its obligations under the performance bonds after it overtook the construction of the projects. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Brady Iandiorio
Brady Iandiorio can be contacted at Iandiorio@hhmrlaw.com

Supreme Court Opens Door for Challenges to Older Federal Regulations

August 05, 2024 — Jane C. Luxton - Lewis Brisbois
Washington, D.C. (July 1, 2024) – On July 1, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued another end-of-term major decision limiting the scope of federal agency actions in Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Adding to the tectonic shift in the regulatory landscape created by the Court’s June 27 and 28 rulings constraining the role of administrative law judges and overturning longstanding “Chevron deference” by courts to federal agency expertise, the decision in Corner Post establishes a newly expanded time frame for affected entities to challenge final agency action. Instead of confirming that final agency action is subject to a default six-year statute of limitations, the Court held that under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the time limit for appeal begins to run when a plaintiff is injured by the agency's action, not when the action becomes final. This decision has important implications for businesses and others affected by federal regulations. The case arose when Corner Post, a truck stop and convenience store in North Dakota that opened in 2018, challenged a 2011 Federal Reserve Board regulation (Regulation II) that set maximum interchange fees for debit card transactions. Corner Post filed suit in 2021, arguing that Regulation II allowed higher fees than permitted by statute. The lower courts dismissed the suit as time-barred under 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a), which effectively requires APA claims to be filed "within six years after the right of action first accrues." Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jane C. Luxton, Lewis Brisbois
Ms. Luxton may be contacted at Jane.Luxton@lewisbrisbois.com

Newark Trial Team Obtains Affirmance of Summary Judgment for General Contractor Client

January 21, 2025 — Lewis Brisbois Newsroom
Newark, N.J. (December 31, 2024) - Days after obtaining an Appellate Division victory affirming a “no cause” jury verdict, Newark Partner Afsha Noran and Managing Partner Colin Hackett obtained a second appellate court victory affirming a trial court's dismissal of a complaint against another firm client, a general contractor. The team had previously obtained summary judgment at the trial level on the grounds plaintiff could not establish a prima facie case against the client. The plaintiff appealed the grant of summary judgment and dismissal of her claim to the Appellate Division. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Lewis Brisbois

Suing A Payment Bond Surety in Different Venue Than Set Forth in The Subcontract

August 10, 2021 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
The venue to file a lawsuit can be an important issue for a variety of reasons, whether for convenience or the prospect of a more favorable outcome. Oftentimes, there is a venue provision in a contract that provides where the exclusive venue for any dispute arising out of the contract must be brought. In a recent case, Southeastern Concrete Constructors, LLC v. Western Surety Company, 2021 WL 2557297 (Fla. 2d DCA 2021), dealing with a Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) project, a subcontractor filed suit against the general contractor’s FDOT payment bond issued under Florida Statute s. 337.18. The subcontractor did not file suit against the general contractor. The subcontractor filed suit in Hillsborough County, Florida. However, the subcontract contained a venue provision requiring disputes under the subcontract to be brought in Levy County, Florida. Based on this venue provision in the subcontract, the trial court granted a motion to transfer the venue of the dispute to Levy County. This, however, was reversed on appeal. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

Bank of America’s Countrywide Ordered to Pay $1.3 Billion

July 30, 2014 — Patricia Hurtado – Bloomberg
Bank of America Corp.’s Countrywide unit was ordered to pay $1.3 billion in penalties for defective mortgage loans it sold to Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, a little more than half of what the U.S. had requested. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan issued the civil penalty against the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank today in the first mortgage-fraud case brought by the federal government to go to trial. Countrywide and Rebecca Mairone, a former executive with the mortgage lender, were found liable in October for selling thousands of bad loans to the two government-sponsored enterprises. Mairone was ordered today to pay $1 million. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Patricia Hurtado, Bloomberg
Ms. Hurtado may be contacted at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

Risk Spotter Searches Internal Data Lakes For Loaded Words

October 11, 2017 — Tom Sawyer - Engineering News-Record
A tech start-up recently announced that it has been granted seven U.S. patents for a system that applies a “deep learning” algorithm to examine corporate e-mail databases and flag those with message fields or attachments containing language that might increase risk for a company involved in a federal discrimination lawsuit. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tom Sawyer, ENR
Mr. Sawyer may be contacted at sawyert@enr.com

WA Supreme Court Allows Property Owner to Sue Engineering Firm for Lost Profits

February 25, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
In the Daily Journal of Commerce, Scott A. Smith and James H. Wendell discussed the recent Washington Supreme Court decision in Donatelli v D. R. Strong Consulting Engineers. The court’s ruling casts “doubt on a company's ability to limit its liability for economic losses arising out of a contract dispute.” The Donatellis hired D. R. Strong Consulting Engineers to develop vacant land in King County, however, the “project did not go according to plan and the real estate market collapsed before the project was completed,” according to the Daily Journal of Commerce. The “Donatellis lost their property through foreclosure” and then “sued the engineering firm for more than $1.5 million in lost profits.” D. R. Strong Consulting Engineers asked for the negligence claims to be dismissed “because the parties' contract contained a provision limiting the engineering firm's liability to the amount of its fee for ‘any injury or loss on account of any error, omission, or other professional negligence.’” However, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that “the case could proceed in the trial court on a theory that the engineers could be liable if they made negligent misrepresentations that induced the Donatellis to enter into the contract in the first place.” Smith and Wendell stated that because of “this decision, engineering, architectural, construction, and other professional service companies may now face damage claims they thought they were contractually protected against.” Read the court decision
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FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES