EEOC Sues Schuff Steel, J.A. Croson in New Racial Harassment Cases
October 24, 2022 —
Richard Korman - Engineering News-RecordThe U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has renewed its effort to combat discrimination and harassment in the construction industry, filing in September four federal lawsuits against construction employers, including major specialty contractors such as erector Schuff Steel and mechanical contractor J.A. Croson. Each has been charged with violating federal laws against racial harassment in the workplace.
Reprinted courtesy of
Richard Korman, Engineering News-Record
Mr. Korman may be contacted at kormanr@enr.com
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Research Project Underway to Prepare Water Utilities for Wildfire Events
January 23, 2023 —
Brown and CaldwellPORTLAND, Ore., January 17, 2023 — A multi-disciplinary team of utilities, academia, and consultants have convened to develop a study and publish guidance to improve water treatment resilience against the impacts of forest fires.
Critical to water security, forested watersheds provide 75 percent of the world’s accessible freshwater (Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations 2021) and supply drinking water for more than two-thirds of North American consumers (EPA 2019). The frequency and severity of forest fires have been increasing globally with warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns due to climate change. Wildfires can cause costly, long-term water treatment issues that push water treatment processes beyond their design and operational response capabilities.
Such issues include filtration effectiveness, disinfection efficacy, the elevation of disinfection by-product formation, and increased bioavailable phosphorus leading to problematic cyanobacterial/algal blooms.
Led by a principal research team of Lynn Stephens (Brown and Caldwell), Dr. Mac Gifford and Yone Akagi (Portland Water Bureau), and Dr. Monica Emelko (University of Waterloo), Water Research Foundation (WRF) project #5168 is funded by the foundation’s Emerging Opportunities Program and the Portland Water Bureau (PWB).
About The Water Research Foundation
The Water Research Foundation (WRF) is the leading research organization advancing the science of all water to meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. WRF is a nonprofit, educational organization that funds, manages, and publishes research on the technology, operation, and management of drinking water, wastewater, reuse, and stormwater systems—all in pursuit of ensuring water quality and improving water services to the public. For more information, visit www.waterrf.org
About Brown and Caldwell
Headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif., Brown and Caldwell is a full-service environmental engineering and construction services firm with 52 offices and more than 1,700 professionals across North America and the Pacific. For over 75 years, our creative solutions have helped municipalities, private industry, and government agencies successfully overcome their most challenging water and environmental obstacles. As an employee-owned company, Brown and Caldwell is passionate about exceeding our clients’ expectations and making a difference for our employees, our communities, and our environment. For more information, visit www.brownandcaldwell.com
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West Coast Casualty Construction Defect Seminar Announced for 2014
October 30, 2013 —
CDJ STAFFOrganizers describe the even as “America’s largest, America’s favorite, America’s best construction defect seminar.” And in 2014, they will hold the twenty-first of these annual construction defect seminars. As for size, last year’s event comprised 1,614 attendees, travelling not only from across the county, but from outside the United States as well.
West Coast Casualty is beginning to line up its speakers for next May’s seminar. The organizers are asking speakers to submit proposed topics by November 25 and the list will be finalized on December 15. The theme for the event will be “Back to Business … Working Smarter … Not Harder.” While West Coast Casualty is looking for topics that focus on the central theme, they are also interested in presentations on emerging trends in construction defect litigation.
In addition to seminars, there will be booths for many of the companies in the construction defect resolution industry, demonstrating products and services of use to professionals in the field. This gives attendees a chance for less-structured interaction than is possible within a seminar.
Continuing education credits were granted for the 2013 seminar by a lengthy list of organizations, which included the Bar Associations of 22 states and the Departments of Insurance of 35. The 2014 West Coast Casualty Construction Defect Seminar will be held May 15 and 16 at the Disneyland Hotel and Resort.
During the seminar comes the awarding of the prestigious Jerrold S. Oliver Award of Excellence, named in honor of the late Judge Jerrold S. Oliver, who was known for his skills as a mediator. In 2013, the “Ollie” was awarded to Margie Luper in acknowledgement of her contributions to the betterment of the construction defect resolution field. The recipients of the Jerrold S. Oliver Award of Excellence are selected by the votes of about 6,000 industry professionals.
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Bert L. Howe & Associates Returns as a Sponsor at the 30th Annual Construction Law Conference in San Antonio
January 13, 2017 —
Don MacGregor - Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc.Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc. is proud to join with the Texas Institute of CLE, and return for the third year as a sponsor and exhibitor at the 30th Annual Construction Law Conference to be held March 2nd & 3rd, 2017 at the La Cantera Resort and Spa in San Antonio.
With offices in San Antonio and Houston serving all of Texas, Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc. (BHA) offers the experience of over 20 years of service to carriers, defense counsel, and insurance professionals as designated experts in nearly 6,500 cases. BHA’s staff encompasses a broad range of licensed and credentialed experts in the areas of general contracting and specialty trades, as well as architects, and both civil and structural engineers, and has provided services on behalf of developers, general contractors and sub-contractors.
BHA’s experience covers the full range of construction and construction defect litigation, including single and multi-family residential (including high-rise), institutional (schools, hospitals and government buildings), commercial, and industrial claims. BHA specializes in coverage, exposure, premises liability, and delay claim analysis as well.
As the litigation climate in Texas continues to change, and as the number of construction defect and other construction related cases continues to rise, it is becoming more important for contractors and builders to be aggressive in preparing for claims before they are made, and in defending against those claims once they are filed. Since 1993, Bert L. Howe & Associates has been an industry leader in providing construction consulting services, and has been a trusted partner with builders and insurance carriers, both large and small, across the Western and Southern United States. Here in Texas, we have been providing construction defect and construction-claims related forensic expert services for the past decade with a proven track record of successful results. To-date, we have participated in the successful defense of claims involving thousands homes here in Texas alone.
For those of you planning on attending the conference, or those who may know someone who will be, we encourage you to stop by the BHA booth and we welcome the opportunity to discuss further the broad range of services provided by BHA.
For your convenience, here is a link to the information page for the 30th Annual Construction Law Conference: https://www.clesolutions.com/store.aspx?categoryid=2
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Don MacGregor, Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc.Mr. MacGregor may be contacted at
dmac@berthowe.com
The Heat Is On
June 13, 2022 —
Christopher Durso - Construction ExecutiveEvery year, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) team up to assess global temperatures and climate trends. (Yes, that NASA. A big part of the space agency’s mission is focused on Earth science, with the goal of better understanding the planet’s interconnected systems.) The two groups released their findings for 2021 this past January, with several predictably alarming highlights:
- 2021 was the sixth-warmest year on record, with the average global surface temperature about 1.5°F over the 20th-century baseline periods that the agencies use for comparison and nearly 2°F higher than in the late-19th century.
- The surface temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was also the sixth-highest on record, at nearly 2°F over baseline, with the land temperature exceeding the baseline by 2.8°F.
- Extreme climate events included an above-average Atlantic hurricane season, with 21 storms, and a severe heat wave in the northwestern United States and western Canada in June during which Canada recorded its highest temperature ever, at 121°F.
Reprinted courtesy of
Christopher Durso, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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The Goldilocks Rule: Panel Rejects Proposed Insurer-Specific MDL Proceedings for Four Large Insurers, but Establishes MDL Proceeding for the Smallest
November 16, 2020 —
Eric B. Hermanson & Konrad R. Krebs - White and WilliamsIt is an outcome few people expected. Back in August, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (Panel) refused plaintiffs’ requests to set up a single industry-wide multi-district litigation, which would have consolidated — in a single massive proceeding — all federal lawsuits seeking COVID-related business interruption coverage from insurers. The Panel acknowledged common legal issues, and potential benefits of coordinated management, but it balanced those benefits against the numerous factual differences between policies, carriers, and insureds, and noted that “[t]hese differences will overwhelm any common factual questions.”
Then, after lengthy argument, the Panel ordered further briefing as to whether separate, company-specific MDL proceedings might be appropriate against five specific insurance carriers: specifically, the five carriers against whom the largest numbers of federal claims were pending.
By choosing these five carriers and not others for further argument, the Panel seemed to be suggesting a formula: the larger the carrier, and the greater the number of claims against it, the greater the potential benefit from coordinated management, and the stronger the plaintiffs’ case for pre-trial consolidation.
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Eric Hermanson, White and WilliamsMr. Hermanson may be contacted at
hermansone@whiteandwilliams.com
Hawaii Supreme Court Construes Designated Premises Endorsement In Insured's Favor
April 01, 2015 —
Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law HawaiiThe Hawaii Supreme Court held that a Designated Premises Endorsement provided coverage for injury and damage that occurred away from a listed location if the injury or damage arose out of the ownership, maintenance or use of the designated premises. C. Brewer and Co., Ltd. v. Marine Indemn. Ins. Co., 2015 Haw. LEXIS 62 (Haw. March 27, 2015). [Disclosure: our office represents C. Brewer].
The case involves coverage for the former owner (C. Brewer) of land under the Kaloko Reservoir. The Reservoir was fronted by an earthen dam. The Dam burst in March 2006, killing seven people and causing extensive property damage downstream.
In 1977, the State of Hawaii and C. Brewer entered an agreement requiring C. Brewer to, among other things, restore and expand the irrigation system that provided water to sugar cane fields in Kilauea, Kauai. C. Brewer formed the Kilauea Irrigation Company (KIC) to satisfy obligations to the State, revitalize the System, and sell System water to local farmers for irrigation.
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Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law HawaiiMr. Eyerly may be contacted at
te@hawaiilawyer.com
Data Is Critical for the Future of Construction
April 19, 2022 —
Raghi Iyengar - Construction ExecutiveAccording to a
recent study, real-time visibility and access to critical data and insights are vital for rapid construction decision-making. Notably, inaccurate and missing data cost the industry almost $2 trillion in 2020. Even more surprising, construction companies often don’t know if they’ve made or lost money until the job is complete or if they’re on schedule until they start falling behind. These findings portray an important reality for the industry: Construction needs to establish and optimize data strategies to ensure it has the visibility control, and transparency needed to improve efficiency and productivity on projects.
Luckily, while historically slow to change, the construction industry has begun to adopt technologies that help firms improve efficiency and productivity on projects. With this technology, contractors can establish and optimize data strategies to ensure they have visibility, control and transparency.
Embracing data is a game changer as the industry continues to expand. In fact, the report from Autodesk and FMI cited above found that the construction companies using data technologies and strategies saw
fewer project delays, less rework and fewer change orders.
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Raghi Iyengar, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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