FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Statute of Limitations Bars Lender’s Subsequent Action to Quiet Title Against Junior Lienholder Mistakenly Omitted from Initial Judicial Foreclosure Action

October 19, 2020 — Lyndsey Torp - Snell & Wilmer Real Estate Litigation Blog
A recently issued opinion by the Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District tells a cautionary tale regarding a lender’s failure to name a junior lienholder in its initial judicial foreclosure action. In Cathleen Robin v. Al Crowell, — Cal.Rptr.3d —-, 2020 WL 5951506, plaintiffs sued defendant, a junior lienholder, for quiet title, having failed to name him in the initial judicial foreclosure action. Defendant raised the statute of limitations defense, but the trial court found in favor of plaintiffs. The court of appeal reversed, holding that the 60-year statute of limitations which the trial court applied only applied to a nonjudicial trustee’s sale, and the trial court could not exercise the trustee’s power of sale after the expiration of the statute of limitations on a judicial action to foreclose. In 2006, plaintiffs loaned Steve and Marta Weinstein (the “Weinsteins”) $450,000, secured by a deed of trust on one parcel of the Weinstein’s property. In 2007, the Weinsteins and defendant Al Crowell (“Crowell”) recorded a second deed of trust on the property, securing a promissory note executed by the Weinsteins in 2004. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Lyndsey Torp, Snell & Wilmer
Ms. Torp may be contacted at ltorp@swlaw.com

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PA Supreme Court to Rule on Scope of Judges' Credibility Determinations

April 20, 2016 — Max Kimbrough – White and Williams LLP
In IA Construction v. WCAB (Rhodes), the Commonwealth Court reversed the WCJ’s decision to deny the employer’s Modification Petition on the basis that the employer’s medical expert was not credible. In the underlying case, the claimant was determined to have sustained compensable work injuries to his head, neck and back. The employer subsequently filed a Modification Petition, seeking to modify benefits to Partial Disability based on an Impairment Rating Evaluation (IRE) which found that the claimant had a 34% whole body impairment. The WCJ ultimately denied the employer’s Modification Petition, finding that the IRE physician's categorization of the claimant's injuries and interpretation of the claimant's impairment level from his brain injury was not credible. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Max Kimbrough, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Kimbrough may be contacted at kimbroughm@whiteandwilliams.com

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Largest Dam Removal Program in US History Reaches Milestone

December 11, 2023 — Mary K. Miller - Engineering News-Record
All work associated with removal of the first of four hydroelectric dams slated for demolition on the Klamath River completed in early November, according to the dam owner, Klamath River Renewal Corp. Demolition of the four dams on the Klamath River that flows through parts of Oregon and California is the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. Reprinted courtesy of Mary K. Miller, Engineering News-Record ENR may be contacted at enr@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Risk Management for Condominium Conversions

July 31, 2013 — David McLain, Higgings, Hopkins, McLain & Roswell, LLC
One of the bright spots in the Colorado construction industry over the last few years has been the construction of for-rent apartments. It seems as though apartments are going up everywhere you look along the Front Range. As market forces change, it will be interesting to see whether these units will remain apartments or whether they will be converted into for-sale condominiums or townhouses. One of the risk management strategies we have recently discussed with our general contractor clients who have been asked to build apartments is to ensure that the project remains a for-rent apartment project through the applicable statute of repose, conservatively assumed to be eight years. Unfortunately this is not always feasible, usually because the owner and/or lender are not interested in encumbering the property for such a long period of time, and want to retain the ability to convert the project if and when market forces allow, even if that is before the running of the statute of repose. The purpose of this article is to discuss the insurance and risk management ramifications of converting a project too early. I have recently heard from several sources in the insurance industry that there are owners and contractors who are currently building apartments with the idea that they will be held as apartments for two to three years and then converted to for-sale condominiums or townhomes. While this strategy may have great appeal from a business point of view, it has a very serious risk management downside. Apparently, these owners and contractors are operating under the mistaken belief that they will have no liability exposure to the ultimate purchasers of the converted units or to the homeowners association for construction defects. This is an incorrect belief. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David M. McLain
David M. McLain can be contacted at mclain@hhmrlaw.com

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A Court-Side Seat: As SCOTUS Decides Another Regulatory “Takings” Case, a Flurry of Action at EPA

July 19, 2021 — Anthony B. Cavender - Gravel2Gavel
This is a brief account of some of the important environmental and administrative law cases recently decided. THE U.S. SUPREME COURT Pakdel v. City and County of San Francisco On June 28, 2021, the Supreme Court decided this regulatory “takings” case, and, in a Per Curium opinion, reversed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that that petitioners had to exhaust their state administrative remedies before they could file this lawsuit under 42 USC Section 1983. The City government had already come to a sufficient regulatory conclusion, and the Constitution does not require additional processing. In so ruling, the Ninth Circuit ignored last term’s decision in Knick v. Township of Scott. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Anthony B. Cavender, Pillsbury
Mr. Cavender may be contacted at anthony.cavender@pillsburylaw.com

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Plans Go High Tech

April 25, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

One construction executive described it as “the wave of the future.” What is it? Accessing building plans on an iPad. According to an article in MacWorld, several companies are now offering solutions to distribute and update construction plans on iPads. Changes to plans and notes can be distributed quickly through cloud computing.



Alan Dillon, a senior superintendent at DPR Construction told MacWorld, “I can take my iPad into the field and have my whole set of drawings.” He described a set of drawings for a large construction project as “five or six inches thick.” Danielle Douthet, of Level 10 Construction said it “can help everyone be on the same page more quickly, and make sure that everybody is working off the most current set of documents.”



And it’s not just building plans. Other firms offer building management applications designed to be taken into the field on mobile devices.



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Standard For Evaluating Delay – Directly from An Armed Services Board Of Contract Appeal’s Opinion

October 04, 2021 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
Sometimes, it is much better to hear it from the horse’s mouth. That is the case here. The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeal’s (ASBCA) opinion in Appeals of -GSC Construction, Inc., ASBCA No. 59402, 2020 WL 8148687 (ASBCA November 4, 2020) includes an informative discussion of a contractor’s burden when it encounters excusable delay and, of importance, the standard for evaluating delay. It’s a long discussion but one that parties in construction need to know, appreciate, and understand. EVERY WORD IN THIS DISCUSSION MATTERS. Construction projects get delayed and with a delay comes money because time is money. Many claims are predicated on delay. These can be an owner assessing liquidated damages due to a delayed job or a contractor seeking its costs for delay. Either way, the standard for evaluating delay and the burdens imposed on a party cannot be understated and, certainly, cannot be overlooked. For this reason, here is the discussion on evaluating delay directly from the horse’s mouth in the Appeal of-GSC Construction, Inc.:

The critical path is the longest path in the schedule on which any delay or disruption would cause a day-for-day delay to the project itself; those activities must be performed as they are scheduled and timely in order for the project to finish on time. Wilner v. United States, 23 Cl. Ct. 241, 245 (1991). In Yates-Desbuild Joint Venture, CBCA No. 3350 et al., 17-1 BCA ¶ 36,870, our sister board compiled an excellent and very helpful synopsis of the standards for evaluating delay claims, which I adopt nearly verbatim among the discussion that follows.

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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

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First Suit Filed for Losses Caused by COVID-19

March 30, 2020 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
Last week, the first lawsuit was filed seeking insurance coverage for business-interruption due to losses caused by COVID-19. The case, Cajun Conti, LLC, et al. v. Certain Underwriters at Lloyd's of London, ,et al., was filed in Louisiana. A New Orleans restaurant, Oceana Grill," seeks a declaratory judgment that its "all risks" policy issued by Lloyd's covers losses resulting from the closure of its restaurant due to the Governor's order restricting public gatherings and the Mayor of New Orleans' order closing restaurants. The lawsuit contends that "contamination of the insured premises by the coronavirus would be a direct physical loss needing remediation to clean the surfaces of the establishment." The lawsuit further alleges the policy contains no exclusions for a "viral pandemic." The suit seeks a declaration that "the policy provides coverage to plaintiffs for any future civil authority shutdowns of restaurants in the New Orleans area due to physical loss from coronavirus contamination and that the policy provides business income coverage in the event that the coronavirus has contaminated the insured premises." The obvious dispute will be whether the coronavirus constitutes a "direct physical loss or damage" as required by the policy. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

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