Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Violation of Prompt Payment Statutes is Not a Breach of Contract. But That’s Not the Most Interesting Part

November 01, 2022 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
While construction projects can get messy, they don’t get much messier than the next case, which, while involving a fairly limited legal issue, has such jaw dropping facts it’s worth a read if only to make you feel a bit better about your own project. The Clark Bros. Case In Clark Bros, Inc. v. North Edwards Water District, 77 Cal.App.5th 801 (2022), general contractor Clark Bros., Inc. was awarded over $3 million in damages against a local water district on a water treatment facility project. The Project The North Edwards Water District serves approximately 220 customers in the Mojave Desert. It has one employee, Dollie Dimples Kostopoulos. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up. The drinking water it provides to its customers contains three times the legal limit of arsenic, a carcinogen. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

Sometimes You Get Away with Unwritten Contracts. . .

January 20, 2020 — Christopher G. Hill - Construction Law Musings
I have spoken often regarding the need for a well written construction contract that sets out the “terms of engagement” for your construction project. A written construction contract sets expectations and allows the parties to the contract to determine the “law” of their project. An unwritten “gentleman’s agreement” can lead to confusion, faulty memories, and more money paid to construction counsel than you would like as we lawyers play around in the grey areas. One other area where the written versus unwritten distinction makes a difference is in the calculation of the statute of limitations. In Virginia, a 5 year statute of limitations applies to written contracts while a 3 year statute of limitations applies to unwritten contracts. This distinction came into stark relief in the case of M&C Hauling & Constr. Inc. v. Wilbur Hale in the Fairfax, Virginia Circuit Court. In M&C Hauling, M&C provided hauling services to the defendant through a subcontract with Hauling Unlimited in 2014, the last of which was in July. M&C provided over 2000 hours of hauling and provided time tickets (that were passed to Mr. Hale on Hauling Unlimited letterhead and signed by Mr. Hale or his agent) and an invoice stating the price term of $75.00 per hour. No separate written contract between M&C and Hauling Unlimited or Mr. Hale existed. 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

Float-In of MassDOT Span Sails, But Delay Dispute Lingers

December 08, 2016 — Johanna Knapschaefer – Engineering News-Record
The Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation and a contracting team are in discussions regarding fabrication issues that caused a two-year delay in the completion of a key crossing between Quincy and Weymouth. The full completion of the $244-million Fore River Bridge replacement, originally slated for Jan. 5, 2017, is now projected for February 2019. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Johanna Knapschaefer, Engineering News-Record
ENR may be contacted at enr.com@bnpmedia.com

Policyholders' Coverage Checklist in Times of Coronavirus

March 16, 2020 — Richard W. Brown & Andres Avila - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Every state but West Virginia have reported hundreds of Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the U.S. More than half are in California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts. The unprecedented social and economic impact of the Coronavirus makes it necessary for policyholders to keep open all lines of communications with their insurance brokers, insurance carriers, financial advisors, safety & compliance experts, and insurance coverage counsel even if it is not certain whether they will need to file insurance claims. As always, the specific terms of the insurance policies and the way losses are documented and presented to insurance carriers will be pivotal in securing coverage for Coronavirus-related exposures, such as jobsite closures, stop-work orders, remote work mandated measures, business interruption, event cancelation, employees’ claims, among others. Policyholders should consider the following checklist of key insurance coverage tasks to be better positioned to face the risks posed by the Coronavirus:

Pre-Loss Risk Management: A careful review of the policyholder’s insurance program may show coverage for the Coronavirus outbreak. Now is the time to assess, with the guidance of your brokers and insurance coverage counsel, the specific coverages in place. Policyholders may want to particularly review the terms and conditions of their Property, General Liability, Pollution, Directors & Officers, Professional Liability, Fiduciary Liability, as well as Event Cancelation Insurance coverages, among others depending on their specific business trade. For instance, Policyholders would want to assess, ahead of time, whether there are bacterial/virus/communicable diseases/pandemics exclusions in their policies. It is also relevant to review, with a keen eye, the insuring agreements and pose hypotheticals to stress test them and see how far coverage would go with respect to a Coronavirus exposure;

Reprinted courtesy of Richard W. Brown, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. and Andres Avila, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. Mr. Brown may be contacted at rwb@sdvlaw.com Mr. Avila may be contacted at ara@sdvlaw.com Read the court decision
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Saudi Arabia Awards Contracts for Megacity Neom’s Worker Housing

September 16, 2019 — Vivian Nereim - Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia has awarded to two Saudi firms contracts to build worker housing for its futuristic mega-city called Neom, as plans for the $500 billion project move forward despite skepticism from investors. Tamimi Group and Saudi Arabian Trading & Construction Co. won contracts to finance, build and operate three residential areas with capacity to house 30,000 people, Neom said in a statement on Sunday. The areas will be part of a so-called “Construction Village,” which Neom later plans to expand to accommodate more than 100,000 residents, it said. Neom did not say how much the contracts were worth. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Vivian Nereim, Bloomberg

Word of the Day: “Contractor”

September 16, 2024 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
What’s in a word? When it comes to insurance policies, a word, can potentially mean millions of dollars. In California Specialty Insulation, Inc. v. Allied World Surplus Lines Insurance Company, 102 Cal.App.5th 1 (2024), an insured and its insurer battled it out over the word “contractor,” and whether an exclusion from coverage of bodily injury to any employee or temporary worker “of any contractor or subcontractor,” excluded a personal injury claim brought by an employee of a general contractor against a subcontractor. The California Specialty Contractor Case In 2017, Air Control Systems, Inc. (“Air Control”) was contracted to perform improvements at a building in Los Angeles, California. Air Control in turn subcontracted with California Specialty Insulation, Inc. (“CSI”) to install duct insulation on the project. During construction, an employee of Air Control was injured when he fell 16 to 20 feet from a ladder that was struck by a scissor lift driven by an employee of CSI. Approximately two years later the Air Control employee filed a personal injury lawsuit against CSI. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

Pulte Home Corp. v. CBR Electric, Inc.

August 24, 2020 — Michael Velladao - Lewis Brisbois
In Pulte Home Corp. v. CBR Electric, Inc., 50 Cal.App.5th 216 (June 10, 2020), the California Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s entry of judgment in favor of six subcontractors with respect to an equitable subrogation lawsuit filed by St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company (“St. Paul”). St. Paul filed the lawsuit after defending Pulte Home Corp. (“Pulte”) against two construction defect lawsuits. The lawsuit contended that St. Paul was entitled to seek recovery of defense costs incurred on behalf of Pulte based on equitable subrogation. St. Paul relied on the indemnity clauses in each of the subcontracts, and argued that the subcontractors had breached their contracts with Pulte. As such, each subcontractor was obligated to pay an equitable share of the defense of the construction defect lawsuits relating to their work on the homes at issue in such lawsuits. The trial court ruled against St. Paul and held that the subcontractors’ failure to pay defense costs did not “cause” the homeowners’ claims, such that there was no causal connection supporting a claim for equitable subrogation. In addition, the trial court found that “equitable subrogation was an all-or-nothing claim, meaning it required a shifting of the entire amount of defense costs to the subcontractors on a joint and several basis and did not allow for an apportionment of costs among the defendant subcontractors.” In reversing the trial court’s decision, the Court of Appeal reasoned that St. Paul stood in the shoes of Pulte and was limited to pursuing recovery from the subcontractors based on the same rights as afforded to Pulte under the subcontracts. The Court of Appeal noted that St. Paul was seeking reimbursement of defense costs from the subcontractors based on the theory that they were contractually liable for paying an equitable share of defense costs. The Court of Appeal also noted that St. Paul’s claim was not premised on the contention that the subcontractors’ failure to pay defense costs caused the homeowners’ claims. Rather, St. Paul’s claim was premised on the subcontractors’ breach of their defense duty owed to Pulte under the indemnity clauses in their subcontracts. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Michael Velladao, Lewis Brisbois
Mr. Velladao may be contacted at Michael.Velladao@lewisbrisbois.com

Insurance Companies Score Win at Supreme Court

December 26, 2022 — Mason Fletcher & Ryan Sternoff - Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC
In 2011, the Washington State Department of Transportation (“WSDOT”) contracted with Seattle Tunnel Partners, a joint venture of Dragados USA and Tutor Perini (“STP”) to construct a tunnel (“SR 99 Tunnel”) to replace the dilapidated Alaska Way Viaduct. STP obtained a builder’s “all-risk” insurance policy (“Policy”) from Great Lakes Reinsurance (UK) PLC and several other insurers (collectively, the “Insurers”) which insured against damage to both the project and the tunnel boring machine popularly known as Big Bertha (“Bertha”). Bertha began excavating in July 2013 but broke down a few months later when the machine stopped working. Work did not resume on the project until December 2015. WSDOT and STP tendered insurance claims for the losses associated with the delays and breakdown of Bertha but the Insurers denied coverage. Thereafter, WSDOT and STP sued. The Insurers moved the trial court for partial summary judgment to resolve some, but not all, of the coverage disputes. In a unanimous decision, the Washington State Supreme Court affirmed the trial court and Court of Appeals, and held that insurance companies do not have to reimburse WSDOT and STP for costs accrued during a two-year Project delay, under certain provisions of the insurance policies. Reprinted courtesy of Mason Fletcher, Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC and Ryan Sternoff, Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC Mr. Sternoff may be contacted at ryan.sternoff@acslawyers.com Read the court decision
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