Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Ninth Circuit: Speculative Injuries Do Not Confer Article III Standing

February 28, 2018 — Omar Parra and Lawrence S. Zucker II – Publications & Insights
As Dwight Schrute of hit NBC show “The Office” said, “identity theft is not a joke, Jim! Millions of families suffer every year!” In response, Congress has passed a variety of legislation over the years aimed at curbing identity theft. One such piece of legislation, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”), as amended by corollary acts, prohibits the printing of more than the last 5 digits of the credit card number or the credit card number’s expiration date on any sales receipt. Anyone who “willfully fails to comply with [the requirements] is liable to that consumer” for statutory or actual damages, attorney’s fees and costs, and potential punitive damages. But is a statutory violation of the FCRA alone a sufficient injury to confer Article III standing? No, says the Ninth Circuit. Reprinted courtesy of Omar Parra, Haight, Brown & Bonesteel LLP and Lawrence S. Zucker II , Haight, Brown & Bonesteel LLP Mr. Parra may be contacted at oparra@hbblaw.com Mr. Zucker may be contacted at lzucker@hbblaw.com Read the court decision
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Georgia Local Government Drainage Liability: Nuisance and Trespass

November 29, 2021 — David R. Cook Jr. - Autry, Hall & Cook, LLP
A long-running dispute between a landowner and a municipality has escalated to the Georgia Court of Appeals and in the federal court for the Northern District of Georgia.[1] The municipality maintained a stormwater system that discharged on property uphill from the landowner’s property. The uphill property was used as an illegal dump, and debris washed downhill from the dump to the landowner’s property. The debris clogged the landowner’s surface water drainage system, which caused flooding of the property and a building. State Case The landowner sued for trespass, nuisance, takings, and inverse condemnation. While the other claims were barred by the four-year statute of limitations, the court addressed the plaintiff-landowner’s claim for continuing nuisance. Municipalities may be liable when they negligently construct or maintain a sewer or drainage system that causes repeated flooding of property, such that it results in a continuing, abatable nuisance.[2] For a municipality to be liable for maintenance of a nuisance:

the municipality must be chargeable with performing a continuous or regularly repetitious act, or creating a continuous or regularly repetitious condition, which causes the hurt, inconvenience or injury; the municipality must have knowledge or be chargeable with notice of the dangerous condition; and, if the municipality did not perform an act creating the dangerous condition, . . . the failure of the municipality to rectify the dangerous condition must be in violation of a duty to act.[3]

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Reprinted courtesy of David R. Cook Jr., Autry, Hall & Cook, LLP
Mr. Cook may be contacted at cook@ahclaw.com

Behavioral Science Meets Construction: Insights from Whistle Rewards

September 09, 2024 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
In this episode of the AEC Business Podcast, Aarni Heiskanen hosts Drew Carter, CEO of Whistle Rewards, and Dr. Laurel Newman, a behavioral scientist, to discuss instant rewards for driving behavioral change in construction. Laurel shares her psychology background and academic career, studying how the environment influences behavior. Drew introduces himself as a data scientist, focusing on predictive modeling. Tune in to learn how they collaborate to create motivating environments in the construction industry. Whistle Rewards is a platform specializing in rewards, recognition, and incentives in the AEC industry. It is designed to enhance employee engagement, safety compliance, performance, and technology adoption in construction companies. The Guests Drew Carter, CEO and Co-Founder at Whistle Systems, Inc. Drew is improving employee retention using data science and behavioral science. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

Caution to GCs! An Exception to Privette Can Leave You Open to Liability

February 01, 2023 — Nicole Whyte - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
In a recent important decision, Brown v. Beach House Design & Development the Court of Appeal addressed an issue that frequently arises under the Privette doctrine—the extent to which a general contractor can be held liable for injuries to a subcontractor’s employee. The injuries in Brown arose when a window casing subcontractor’s employee fell from a scaffold erected by a plastering subcontractor at a construction site. According to evidence offered by the plaintiff in opposition to a motion for summary judgment filed by the general contractor, the scaffold was not properly secured to the building where the work was being performed. As a result the scaffold was defective and failed, causing the injuries. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Nicole Whyte, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Ms. Whyte may be contacted at nwhyte@bremerwhyte.com

Pinterest Nixes Big San Francisco Lease Deal in Covid Scaleback

September 21, 2020 — Sophie Alexander - Bloomberg
Pinterest Inc. canceled a large office lease at a building to be constructed near its San Francisco headquarters, marking one of the most significant moves yet by a big tech company to scale back real estate plans in the city amid the Covid-19 pandemic. “As we analyze how our workplace will change in a post-Covid world, we are specifically rethinking where future employees could be based,” Todd Morgenfeld, Pinterest’s chief financial officer and head of business operations, said in a statement Friday. The social-sharing service is paying an $89.5 million termination fee to terminate its lease for 490,000 square feet (45,500 square meters) of space. It will keep its existing offices in the city. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Sophie Alexander, Bloomberg

Drawing the Line: In Tennessee, the Economic Loss Doctrine Does Not Apply to Contracts for Services

December 11, 2023 — Gus Sara - The Subrogation Strategist
In Commercial Painting Co. v. Weitz Co. LLC, No. W2019-02089-SC-R11-CV, 2023 Tenn. LEXIS 39 (Weitz), the Supreme Court of Tennessee (Supreme Court) considered whether the economic loss doctrine barred the plaintiff’s claims for fraud, negligent misrepresentation and punitive damages arising out of a contract with the defendant for construction services. The court held that the economic loss doctrine only applies to product liability cases and does not apply to claims arising from contracts for services. This case establishes that, in Tennessee, the economic loss doctrine does not bar tort claims in disputes arising from service contracts. In Weitz, defendant, Weitz Co. LLC (Weitz), was the general contractor for a construction project and hired plaintiff Commercial Painting Co. (Commercial) as a drywall subcontractor. Weitz refused to pay Commercial for several of its payment applications, claiming that the applications were submitted untimely and contained improper change order requests. Commercial filed a lawsuit against Weitz seeking over $1.9 million in damages, alleging breach of contract, unjust enrichment, enforcement of a mechanic’s lien, and interest and attorney’s fees under the Prompt Pay Act of 1991. Weitz filed a counterclaim for $500,000 for costs allegedly incurred due to Commercial’s delay and defective workmanship. In response, Commercial amended its complaint to add claims for fraud, intentional and negligent misrepresentation, rescission of the contract and $10 million in punitive damages. Commercial alleged that Weitz received an extension of the construction schedule but fraudulently withheld this information from Commercial and continued to impose unrealistic deadlines. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Gus Sara, White and Williams
Mr. Sara may be contacted at sarag@whiteandwilliams.com

The Washington Supreme Court Rules that a Holder of a Certificate of Insurance Is Entitled to Coverage

March 09, 2020 — Sally Kim & Kyle Silk-Eglit - Gordon & Rees Insurance Coverage Law Blog
The Washington courts have historically found that the purpose of a certificate of insurance is to advise others as to the existence of insurance, but that a certificate is not the equivalent of an insurance policy. However, the Washington State Supreme Court recently held that, under certain circumstances, an insurer may be bound by the representations that its insurance agent makes in a certificate of insurance as to the additional insured (“AI”) status of a third party. Specifically, in T-Mobile USA, Inc. v. Selective Ins. Co. of America, the Supreme Court found that where an insurance agent had erroneously indicated in a certificate of insurance that an entity was an AI under a liability policy, that entity would be considered as an AI based upon the agent’s apparent authority, despite boilerplate disclaimer language contained in the certificate. T-Mobile USA, Inc. v. Selective Ins. Co. of America, Slip. Op. No. 96500-5, 2019 WL 5076647 (Wash. Oct. 10, 2019). In this case, Selective Insurance Company of America (“Selective”) issued a liability policy to a contractor who had been retained by T-Mobile Northeast (“T-Mobile NE”) to construct a cell tower. The policy conferred AI status to a third party if the insured-contractor had agreed in a written contract to add the third party as an AI to the policy. Under the terms of the subject construction contract, the contractor was required to name T-Mobile NE as an AI under the policy. T-Mobile NE was therefore properly considered as an AI because the contractor was required to provide AI coverage to T-Mobile NE under the terms of their contract. However, over the course of approximately seven years, Selective’s own insurance agent issued a series of certificates of insurance that erroneously identified a different company, “T-Mobile USA”, as an AI under the policy. This was in error because there was no contractual requirement that T-Mobile USA be added as an AI. Nonetheless, the certificates stated that T-Mobile USA was an AI, and they were signed by the agent as Selective’s “authorized representative.” Reprinted courtesy of Sally S. Kim, Gordon & Rees and Kyle J. Silk-Eglit, Gordon & Rees Ms. Kim may be contacted at sallykim@grsm.com Mr. Silk-Eglit may be contacted at ksilkeglit@grsm.com Read the court decision
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Tips for Contractors Who Want to Help Rebuild After the California Wildfires

November 02, 2017 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
I received a call from one of my contractor clients this past week to see what he could do to help those affected by California’s North Bay fires. The North Bay fires are the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California’s history. To date, the fires have claimed 42 lives, burned more than 200,000 acres of land, destroyed an estimated 8,400 structures and likely damaged tens of thousands more. By comparison, the state’s second most deadly wildfire, the Oakland Hills fire of 1991, claimed the lives of 25 people, burned 1,600 acres of land, and destroyed 2,900 structures. Rebuilding costs for the North Bay fires, according to the California Insurance Commissioner, are expected to top $1 billion. For those with insurance, insurance experts say that the rebuilding process can take two years or more for those whose homes and businesses were destroyed. For those whose homes and businesses were fortunate enough only to be damaged, rebuilding efforts are already underway. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@wendel.com

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