Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Seyfarth Shaw’s Construction Group Receives Top Tier Recognition from Legal 500

July 05, 2023 — Alison Ashford, Michael McKeeman, Bennett Greenberg, Meghan Douris, Jason Smith, Michael Wagner & Ryan Gilchrist - The Construction Seyfarth
Seyfarth Shaw’s Construction group have achieved a top tier ranking in the highly regarded Legal 500 United States 2023 edition, solidifying their reputation as one of the nation’s top legal teams. This recognition reaffirms Seyfarth’s unwavering commitment to excellence in Real Estate Construction and Construction Litigation. The Legal 500 United States guide recognizes Seyfarth’s Construction practice as having a “very deep team with extensive construction knowledge as well as experts in related fields such as government contracting and business organization.” Our team is regarded by clients and peers as “collegial, intelligent, direct and adaptable.” The guide specifically recognizes the firm’s former Construction group chair, Bennett Greenberg, in their Hall of Fame. Alison Ashford, the firm’s current Construction group co-chair, is named a Leading Lawyer and Washington, DC Associate, Michael Wagner, made the Rising Stars list. Other notable mentions include, Michael McKeeman, Construction group co-chair, Jason Smith, Meghan Douris, and Ryan Gilchrist. Reprinted courtesy of Alison Ashford, Seyfarth, Michael McKeeman, Seyfarth, Bennett Greenberg, Seyfarth, Meghan Douris, Seyfarth, Jason Smith, Seyfarth, Michael Wagner, Seyfarth and Ryan Gilchrist, Seyfarth Ms. Ashford may be contacted at aashford@seyfarth.com Mr. McKeeman may be contacted at mmckeeman@seyfarth.com Mr. Greenberg may be contacted at bgreenberg@seyfarth.com Ms. Douris may be contacted at mdouris@seyfarth.com Mr. Smith may be contacted at jnsmith@seyfarth.com Mr. Wagner may be contacted at mewagner@seyfarth.com Mr. Gilchrist may be contacted at rgilchrist@seyfarth.com Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

Courthouse Reporter Series: Two Recent Cases Address Copyright Protection for Architectural Works

January 16, 2024 — Stu Richeson - The Dispute Resolver
Recent decisions by the Seventh Circuit and the Eight Circuit have addressed the scope of protection afforded to architectural works under copyright law. The Seventh Circuit case of Design Basics, LLC v. Signature Constr., Inc., 994 F.3d 879 (7th Cir. 2021), took a somewhat narrow view of the copyright protection afforded to the design of an “affordable, multipurpose, suburban, single-family home.” In Designworks Homes, Inc. v. Columbia House of Brokers Realty, Inc., 9 F.4th 803 (8th Cir. 2021), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 2888, 213 L. Ed. 2d 1103 (2022) the Eight Circuit held that the publication of floor plans of a house in a real estate listing was not protected from claims of copyright infringement. Design Basics, LLC v. Signature Constr., Inc., involved a plaintiff that the court described as holding registered copyrights in thousands of floor plans for suburban, single-family homes that are basic schematic designs, largely conceptual in nature, and depict layouts for one- and two-story single-family homes that include the typical rooms: a kitchen, a dining area, a great room, a few bedrooms, bathrooms, a laundry area, a garage, stairs, assorted closets, etc. The court described the plaintiff as a “copyright troll” and noted that litigation proceeds had become the principal revenue stream for the plaintiff. The plaintiff sued a contractor and related businesses contending hat the defendants had infringed plaintiff’s copyrighted floor plans. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Stu Richeson, Phelps
Mr. Richeson may be contacted at stuart.richeson@phelps.com

Court Finds That Split in Underground Storage Tank is Not a Covered Collapse

July 13, 2017 — Christopher Kendrick & Valerie A. Moore – Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
In Tustin Field Gas & Food v. Mid-Century Ins. Co. (No. B268850, filed 7/3/17), a California appeals court ruled that a split in an underground storage tank, caused by the tank sitting on a rock for years, was not a covered “collapse” as a matter of law. Tustin Field owned a gas station in Palm Springs. The installer of the underground storage tanks did not follow the manufacturer’s instructions to bury them in pea gravel or crushed rock. Instead, the installer just dug a hole, placed the tanks into that hole, and then covered them with “native soil” containing rocks, boulders and other debris. The tanks were double-walled, steel with a fiberglass sheath. Sixteen years after installation, testing revealed that the fiberglass sheath on one tank was no longer intact. The tank was excavated and the fiberglass sheath was found to be cracked from the tank sitting on a nine-inch boulder. The insured paid to have the crack repaired and made a claim for the cost of excavating and repairing the tank. Reprinted courtesy of Christopher Kendrick, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP and Valerie A. Moore, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP Mr. Kendrick may be contacted at ckendrick@hbblaw.com Ms. Moore may be contacted at vmoore@hbblaw.com Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

Risky Business: Contractual Versus Equitable Rights of Subrogation

December 16, 2023 — Kyle Rice - The Subrogation Strategist
In Zurich Am. Ins. Co. v. Infrastructure Eng’g. Inc., 2023 Ill. App. LEXIS 383, the insurer, Zurich American Insurance Company (Insurer) proceeded as subrogee of Community College District No. 508 d/b/a City Colleges of Chicago and CMO, a Joint Venture. The Appellate Court of Illinois, First District (Appellate Court) addressed whether Insurer – who issued a builder’s risk policy to insure a building during construction – could subrogate on behalf of the building owner, City Colleges of Chicago (City Colleges), who was part of the joint venture and an additional named insured, but who had not been directly paid for the underlying loss. The Appellate Court determined that the policy language established that the carrier was contractually permitted to subrogate on behalf of all additional named insureds on the policy, including the building owner. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Kyle Rice, White and Williams
Mr. Rice may be contacted at ricek@whiteandwilliams.com

Be Careful With Construction Fraud Allegations

April 06, 2016 — Christopher G. Hill – Construction Law Musings
Here at Construction Law Musings we have discussed the intersection of contracts, construction and fraud on several occasions. We’ve even discussed how such fraud can bleed over from the civil to the criminal. Recently, the Virginia Supreme Court weighed in again on the question of construction fraud and criminal allegations. In O’Connor v. Tice, the Court discussed a malicious prosecution action brought by a contractor against owners of a commercial building. In O’Connor, the owners and the contractor got into a disagreement over alleged damage to the roof of the owners’ building and who was responsible. In response to this disagreement, the owners contacted the local sheriff’s office, accusing the contractor of construction fraud, and then wrote a “15 day letter” to the contractor outlining the criminal consequences should he fail to pay the damages sought in the owners civil lawsuit. Subsequently, a criminal warrant was issued against the contractor based solely upon the word of the owners. This last occurred at the insistence of the owners (who did not inform the sheriff’s deputy or the Commonwealth Attorney that they’d had this conversation or that the contractor had partially performed) after they discussed the matter with the contractor’s attorney and were informed that any claim that they may have had was civil in nature. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Christopher G. Hill, Construction Law Musings
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

Maryland Legislation Prohibits Condominium Developers from Shortening Statute of Limitations to Defeat Unit Owner Construction Defect Claims

May 16, 2018 — Nicholas D. Cowie - Maryland Condo Construction Defect Law Blog
New Maryland legislation prevents developers from shortening the time period within which condominium associations and their unit owner members can assert claims for hidden construction defects in newly constructed condominium communities. The legislation known as HB 77 and SB 258 passed both houses of the Maryland General Assembly and was signed into law by Governor Lawrence J. Hogan on April 24, 2018 (see photo above). Nicholas D. Cowie, Esq. is the author of the legislation, which will be codified as Section 11-134.1 of the Maryland Condominium Act, effective October 1, 2018. This article discusses how this new legislation ends the practice by which some condominium developers attempted to use condominium documents to shorten the normal statute of limitations in order to prevent condominium associations and their unit owner members from having a fair opportunity to assert their warranty and other legal claims for latent construction defects. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Nicholas D. Cowie, Esq., Cowie & Mott
Mr. Cowie may be contacted at ndc@cowiemott.com

Wildfires Threaten to Make Home Insurance Unaffordable

January 10, 2018 — Christopher Flavelle – Bloomberg
More frequent and intense wildfires are making it harder for homeowners to find and keep insurance in California, a state regulator warned Thursday. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Christopher Flavelle, Bloomberg

How Machine Learning Can Help with Urban Development

March 27, 2019 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
An experimentation project has demonstrated the capabilities of machine learning in urban development. It used images as a starting point and came up with interesting and useful applications. “I read data science papers on how machine vision algorithms can be used with satellite imagery. I immediately saw a connection to what we had been doing,” Antti Kauppi, architect at Arkkitehdit Sankari, explains. “Most people associate image recognition with Google’s visual searches. Google can distinguish whether a photo shows a cat or another animal, for example. We went a step further.” An Experiment with Open Urban Imagery Arkkitehdit Sankari Oy, a Finnish architectural design firm began the experimentation project CityCNN in May 2018. It received funding from KIRA-digi, the Finnish government’s digitalization program for the built environment. CityCNN explored the possibilities of using machine learning and open data for urban development. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES