Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

After 15 Years, Settlement Arrested at San Francisco's Millennium Tower

June 26, 2023 — Nadine M. Post - Engineering News-Record
After overcoming several snags, the team for the voluntary effort to stem future significant settlement and tilting at San Francisco’s 645-ft-tall Millennium Tower has declared the project a success, now that loads have been fully transferred to 18 new perimeter piles driven to bedrock. Reprinted courtesy of Nadine M. Post, Engineering News-Record Ms. Post may be contacted at postn@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

Indemnification Provisions Do Not Create Reciprocal Attorney’s Fees Provisions

November 21, 2018 — CDJ STAFF
In a good, recent decision, the Eleventh Circuit in International Fidelity Insurance Co. v. Americabe-Moriarity, JV, 2018 WL 5306683 (11th Cir. 2018), held that Florida Statute s. 57.105(7) cannot be used to shift attorney’s fees in a contractual indemnification clause in a dispute between a general contractor and subcontractor’s performance bond surety, when the dispute does not involve an actual indemnification claim stemming from a third-party. In this case, a prime contractor terminated a subcontractor and looked to the subcontractor’s performance bond surety to pay for the completion work. The subcontractor had a standard AIA A312 performance bond that requires the prime contractor to comply with the terms of the bond, as well as the incorporated subcontract, in order to trigger the surety’s obligations under the bond. The surety filed an action for declaratory relief against the prime contractor arguing that the prime contractor breached the terms of the performance bond through non-compliance thereby discharging the surety’s obligations. The trial court agreed and the surety moved for attorney’s fees. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

Washington State Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision on Spearin Doctrine

September 29, 2021 — Cameron Sheldon - Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC
The Washington State Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lake Hills Invs., LLC v. Rushforth Constr. Co. No. 99119-7, slip op. at 1 (Wash. Sept. 2, 2021) marks the first time in over 50 years that it has ruled on the Spearin doctrine. The Court’s opinion clarified the contractor’s burden when asserting a Spearin defense and affirmed the jury’s verdict in favor of contractor AP Rushforth Construction Company (AP). The decision is a major win for Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC attorneys Scott Sleight, Brett Hill, and Nick Korst, who represented AP throughout its long-running dispute with Lake Hills Investments, LLC (LH), including the two-month jury trial and the appeal. Leonard Feldman of Peterson | Wampold | Rosato | Feldman | Luna and Stephanie Messplay of Van Siclen Stocks & Firkins also represented AP on appeal. At trial, the owner—Lake Hills Investments, LLC (LH)—asserted it was entitled to $3 million in liquidated damages and $12.3 million for defects it alleged were caused by AP’s deficient workmanship. AP denied responsibility for the delays and most of the defects and requested payment of $5 million. Regarding LH’s defect claims, AP argued as an affirmative defense that the defects were caused by deficiencies in the plans and specifications provided by LH. This affirmative defense was rooted in the Spearin doctrine, which states that when the contractor follows plans and specifications provided by the owner, the contractor is not responsible for defects caused by the plans and specifications. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Cameron Sheldon, Ahlers Cressman & Sleight PLLC
Ms. Sheldon may be contacted at cameron.sheldon@acslawyers.com

Terminating the Notice of Commencement (with a Notice of Termination)

July 19, 2017 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
The notice of commencement is important for purposes of construction lien priority. Stock Bldg. Supply of Florida, Inc. v. Soares Da Costa Const. Services, LLC, 76 So.3d 313, 317 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011) (“[A] notice of commencement serves to determine the priority of liens under the Construction Lien Law.”). A lien relates back in time to the date the notice of commencement was recorded assuming the notice of commencement is still in effect when the lien is recorded (or an amended noticed of commencement is recorded). Lien priority is very important and the reason why a contractor should always want to ensure there is an effective notice of commencement in place rather than an expired notice of commencement. For the same reasons why a contractor wants to ensure there is an effective notice of commencement, there are times an owner wants to terminate a notice of commencement. An owner may want to terminate the potential priority of a construction lien. For instance, say the owner is refinancing or obtaining a construction loan in the midst of construction. A lender will want to ensure its mortgage maintains first priority and certainly priority over a potential construction lien. Otherwise, why would a lender finance the construction if it does not maintain first priority. It generally will not. Thus, an owner needs to terminate the notice of commencement so that the closing occurs on the loan and the mortgage recorded before a new notice of commencement is recorded and construction continues. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Florida Construction Legal Updates
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at Dadelstein@gmail.com

California Bid Protests: Responsiveness and Materiality

January 06, 2016 — Garret Murai – California Construction Law Blog
It can be a rough and tumble world out there. And in the case of public works construction in California, this includes bid disputes. California’s competitive bidding laws require that a public works contract be awarded to the “lowest responsible bidder.” However, as we’ve mentioned before, there are two requirements which must be satisfied for a bidder to be determined to be the lowest responsible bidder: (1) the awarded bidder’s bid must be “responsive”; and (2) the awarded bidder must be “responsible.” In a case decided this past month, DeSilva Gates Construction v. Department of Transportation, Case No. C074521 (December 14, 2015), the California Court of Appeals for the Third District addressed the first of these two requirements, whether two bids on $34 million highway widening project were responsive, which in turn involves a two-step process: (1) whether the bids were responsive or not; and (2) if not, whether the variance in the bids were “material” or “immaterial.” Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@wendel.com

Las Vegas Sphere Lawsuits Roll On in Nevada Courtrooms

October 02, 2023 — Richard Korman - Engineering News-Record
Big concerts have yet to start at Las Vegas’ distinctive new ball-shaped entertainment venue, but the legal noise over its construction has been heard in Clark County courtrooms for more than two years. Reprinted courtesy of Richard Korman, Engineering News-Record Mr. Korman may be contacted at kormanr@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

A Court-Side Seat – Case Law Update (February 2022)

March 06, 2022 — Anthony B. Cavender - Gravel2Gavel
It is already early in 2022, but several important environmental cases have already been decided by the federal district and federal appellate courts. THE COURTS OF APPEAL The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit West Virginia State University Board of Governors v. The Dow Chemical Company, et al. On January 10, 2022, the court decided this case, in which Dow and the other defendants attempted to remove a state groundwater contamination lawsuit to federal court, citing the federal officer removal statute and the presence of a significant federal question. Both the federal district court and the appellate court rejected these arguments and remanded the lawsuit to the state court. For many years, Dow and other parties had been engaged in a RCRA hazardous waste cleanup at an industrial site located in Institute, West Virginia. RCRA permits and corrective action authorizations were issued or supervised by EPA. The plaintiffs complained that the groundwater cleanup, insofar as it affected their property, was deficient, which compelled them to supplement the ongoing federal cleanup with a lawsuit based on West Virginia causes of action and unique to their property. After a careful review of the record, the Fourth Circuit held that the defendants were not acting under the “subjection, guidance or control” of the EPA, and therefore the federal officer removal statute did not apply. Moreover, there was no federal question to resolve as the separate state lawsuit did not challenge a CERCLA cleanup nor did it arise from the RCRA remedial measures that had been taken. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Anthony B. Cavender, Pillsbury
Mr. Cavender may be contacted at anthony.cavender@pillsburylaw.com

How Drones are Speeding Up Construction

July 26, 2017 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are being used in many industries, e.g. agriculture, construction, mining, oil & gas, mapping, and surveying. In construction, drones have proven to be quite disruptive, offering huge productivity increases. Gartner’s famous Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2016, positioned drones as just entering the Peak of Inflated Expectations. Gartner claims that, “Smart machine technologies will be the most disruptive class of technologies over the next 10 years due to radical computational power, near-endless amounts of data, and unprecedented advances in deep neural networks.” Commercial UAVs are one of the smart machine technologies in question, together with smart robots, autonomous vehicles, cognitive expert advisors, and others. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at info@aepartners.fi

SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES