Texas Jury Awards $5.3 Million to Company Defamed by Union: Could it work in Pennsylvania?
December 21, 2016 —
Wally Zimolong – Supplemental ConditionsIn early September a Texas jury awarded a janitorial $5.3 million against the local chapter of the SEIU. The janitorial firm claimed that the SEIU damaged its reputation and caused it damages when it spread false, defamatory, and disparaging stories about the firm. Specifically, the janitorial firm claimed that the SEIU told the janitorial firms customer and potential customers that the firm “systematically failed to pay its employees for all hours worked, instructed janitors to work off the clock and had fired, threatened or refused to hire janitors who supported joining a union.” According to Law360.com, the union did this with “fliers, handbills, letters, emails, newsletters, speeches and postings on its website accused [the firm] of violating wage-and-hour and other labor laws.”
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Wally Zimolong, Zimolong LLCMr. Zimolong may be contacted at
wally@zimolonglaw.com
Here's Proof Homebuilders are Betting on a Pickup in the Housing Market
April 15, 2015 —
Victoria Stilwell – BloombergHomebuilders have caught spring fever.
Confidence among U.S. builders, measured by the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo sentiment gauge, increased in April for the first time in five months. The group's measure of the sales outlook for the next six months climbed to the highest level since December, while a gauge of prospective buyer traffic also rose.
With the housing market posting only middling progress in recent months, the fact that construction companies are optimistic is a good sign, especially heading into the crucial spring-selling season. The period usually starts in mid-February, with deals picking up the following months as the weather warms.
What's more encouraging, though, is that builders seem to be putting money where their mouths are.
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Victoria Stilwell, Bloomberg
Justin Clark Joins Newmeyer & Dillion’s Walnut Creek Branch as its Newest Associate
May 03, 2017 —
Newmeyer & Dillion LLPWALNUT CREEK, Calif. – APR. 28, 2017 – Up and coming associate and insurance attorney
Justin Clark is the newest associate to join the ever-growing litigation practice at Newmeyer & Dillion LLP’s Walnut Creek office. Clark brings experience in the areas of insurance litigation, construction defect litigation, and business transactions.
Walnut Creek’s managing partner Brian Morrow explained why he is so excited by the addition of Clark: “We are thrilled to have Clark on board, as his emphasis on insurance coverage will assist in a key area for our clients, and further expand our capabilities in our northern California office.”
Clark has a background in a variety of practice areas, including insurance coverage, products liability, and asbestos litigation. He advocates for manufacturers, suppliers, distributers, and contractors in all phases of litigation. Clark represents developers, builders, and general contractors in construction and insurance disputes. He also helps small business clients draft commercial contracts to better serve their growing business needs. Clark can be reached at justin.clark@ndlf.com or 925-988-3263.
About Newmeyer & Dillion
For more than 30 years, Newmeyer & Dillion has delivered creative and outstanding legal solutions and trial results for a wide array of clients. With over 70 attorneys practicing in all aspects of business, employment, real estate, construction and insurance law, Newmeyer & Dillion delivers legal services tailored to meet each client’s needs. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with offices in Walnut Creek, California and Las Vegas, Nevada, Newmeyer & Dillion attorneys are recognized by The Best Lawyers in America©, and Super Lawyers as top tier and some of the best lawyers in California, and have been given Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review's AV Preeminent® highest rating. For additional information, call 949-854-7000 or visit www.ndlf.com.
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Florida Enacts Sweeping Tort Reform Legislation, Raising Barriers to Insurance Coverage Claims
April 18, 2023 —
Walter J. Andrews, Andrea DeField & Jae Lynn Huckaba - Hunton Insurance Recovery BlogAs discussed in a recent
client alert, on March 24, 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (HB) 837 into law, making it more difficult and costly for insurance policyholders of all sizes to sue insurers for bad faith by eliminating fee-shifting for most policyholders and requiring something “more than” negligence for bad faith claims.
HB 837’s Impact on Insurance Coverage Claims:
HB 837 is another in a series of reform legislation recently passed in Florida that significantly impacts policyholders’ ability to hold their insurers accountable for the wrongful failure to pay benefits due under the insurance contract. Recent efforts include last year’s repeal of the one-way fee-shifting statute for claims brought under residential and commercial property insurance policies. Previously, the fee-shifting statute allowed policyholders to recover attorneys’ fees from their insurers when the policyholder prevailed in a coverage action. HB 837 repeals
Section 627.428 of the Florida Statutes entirely, extending the repeal of the one-way fee-shifting statute to all types of insurance coverage disputes—not just those under residential and commercial property insurance policies.
Reprinted courtesy of
Walter J. Andrews, Hunton Andrews Kurth,
Andrea DeField, Hunton Andrews Kurth and
Jae Lynn Huckaba, Hunton Andrews Kurth
Mr. Andrews may be contacted at wandrews@HuntonAK.com
Ms. DeField may be contacted at adefield@HuntonAK.com
Ms. Huckaba may be contacted at jhuckaba@HuntonAK.com
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The Business of Engineering: An Interview with Matthew Loos
July 15, 2019 —
Aarni Heiskanen - AEC BusinessMatthew Loos is an experienced project manager in the civil engineering industry. He works as a project engineer at Jones|Carter in Fort Worth, Texas. In this interview, we discuss Matt’s new book, The Business of Engineering.
It is not very common that an engineer writes a non-technical book. What inspired you to do so?
Have you ever gotten an idea stuck in your head that you just couldn’t let go of? A time when you couldn’t go to sleep because the idea was consistently begging for your attention?
That’s what happened to me. The idea for this book hits me right before bed, as most good ideas do. I couldn’t go to sleep after the idea struck me. I spent half of the night writing the chapters of this book in my mind. I had been thinking about the idea of engineering and how it relates to other career fields, even the non-technical ones. I was disenchanted with the trifling number of classes I took that prepared me for the business world. These were the initial thoughts that eventually led me down the road into thinking about engineering as a profession going forward.
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Aarni Heiskanen, AEC BusinessMr. Heiskanen may be contacted at
aec-business@aepartners.fi
Claims Against Broker Dismissed
June 20, 2022 —
Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law HawaiiClaims that the broker failed to secure adequate coverage for condominium owners were dismissed. Ting Lin v. Mountain Valley Indemn. Co., 2022 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1254 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. March 10, 2022).
The amended complaint alleged the agent, Century Max Inc., breached its duty to advise and sell to plaintiffs a homeowners and fire policy far in excess of $100,000 for their condominium unit, which was worth in excess of $600,000. Century moved to dismiss
A fire in the building forced all owners to vacate their units. The entire building was thereafter declared unsafe for habitation by the City of New York. The condominium owners met and voted to not restore the building, but to sell the burnt-out shell and distribute the sales proceeds and the condominium's insurance among the unit owners. There was no indication that the owners would not be made whole once the funds were distributed.
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Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak HastertMr. Eyerly may be contacted at
te@hawaiilawyer.com
L.A. Makes $4.5 Billion Bet on Olympics After Boston Backs Out
August 26, 2015 —
James Nash – BloombergLos Angeles’s dreams of hosting the Olympic Games for a third time could get a boost from the City Council this week, even as officials try to assure taxpayers that they won’t be forced to bail out a botched effort.
The council is expected to vote Wednesday on giving Mayor Eric Garcetti power to negotiate with the U.S. Olympic Committee to bring the 2024 games to Los Angeles and require the city to pay for cost overruns.
Los Angeles emerged as the U.S. contender for the games after Boston withdrew from consideration in July. Opponents there warned that taxpayers were on the hook if the nearly month-long sporting event lost money.
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James Nash, Bloomberg
Will a Notice of Non-Responsibility Prevent Enforcement of a California Mechanics Lien?
March 05, 2015 —
William L. Porter – Porter Law Group, Inc.The “Notice of Non-Responsibility” is one of the most misunderstood and ineffectively used of all the legal tools available to property owners in California construction law. As a result, in most cases the answer to the above question is “No”, the posting and recording of a Notice of Completion will not prevent enforcement of a California Mechanics Lien.
The mechanics lien is a tool used by a claimant who has not been paid for performing work or supplying materials to a construction project. It provides the claimant the right to encumber the property where the work was performed and thereafter sell the property in order to obtain payment for the work or materials, even though the claimant had no contract directly with the property owner. When properly used, a Notice of Non-Responsibility will render a mechanics lien unenforceable against the property where the construction work was performed. By derailing the mechanics lien the owner protects his property from a mechanics lien foreclosure sale. Unfortunately, owners often misunderstand when they can and cannot effectively use a Notice of Non-Responsibility. As a result, the Notice of Non-Responsibility is usually ineffective in protecting the owner and his property.
The rules for the use of the Notice of Non-Responsibility are found in California Civil Code section 8444. Deceptively simple, the rules essentially state that an owner “that did not contract for the work of improvement”, within 10 days after the owner first “has knowledge of the work of improvement”, may fill out the necessary legal form for a Notice of Non-Responsibility and post that form at the worksite and record it with the local County Recorder in order to prevent enforcement of a later mechanics lien on the property.
What commonly occurs however is that early in the process the owner authorizes or even requires its tenant to perform beneficial tenant improvements on the property. This authorization is often set forth in a tenant lease or other written document. The dispositive factor for determining whether the Notice of Non-Responsibility will be enforceable though is that the owner knows that these improvements will be made to the property and intends that they be made, usually long before the work begins. Indeed, the owner has usually negotiated these very terms into the lease contract. The owner then mistakenly believes that once work on the property commences it has 10 days to post and record a Notice of Non-Responsibility and thereby protect itself from a mechanics lien.
The usual error is two-fold. First, the statute states that the Notice is available when the owner “did not contract for the work of improvement”. The fact though is that the owner did contract for the work of improvement. It did so through the lease contract. This is true even though the owner’s contract was not with the contractor or supplier directly. Secondly, the 10 day period to post and record the Notice begins when the owner first “has knowledge” of the work of improvement. This knowledge was of course gained when the lease was negotiated and signed, providing knowledge typically many days before the work has begun. Thus, the 10 day period can also seldom be met. The Notice of Non-Responsibility will therefore fail both rules because the owner has in fact contracted for the improvement and because he does not act within 10 days of gaining this knowledge.
The next event in the typical scenario occurs when the tenant does not pay its contractor. The contractor then has nothing to pay its subcontractors. Material suppliers also go unpaid. Mechanics liens are then recorded by the unpaid claimants, followed by foreclosure actions within ninety days thereafter. Owners will typically point to the Notice of Non-Responsibility they posted and recorded, claiming its protection. Claimants then in turn point to the lease or other evidence that the owner knew of the pending improvements and contracted in some way that the improvements be performed, often also more than 10 days before they posted the Notice. Judges generally agree with the unpaid mechanics lien claimants and the Notice of Non-Responsibility is deemed ineffective.
The fact that the Court does not enforce the Notice of Non-Responsibility under these circumstances is not an unfair result. Since the owner authorized the work to be performed and it received a substantial benefit in the form of those improvements, it is not unfair that the owner should pay for those benefits. It would be inequitable for the owner to obtain the benefit of the improvements which it authorized but for which it did not pay, while allowing those who provided the benefit to go unpaid. Moreover, without such a system in place the door would be open to owners setting up sham “tenants” who would enter into contracts to have work performed, only to disappear when the work is completed, leaving the contractor without a source of payment. The system in place as described above prevents such duplicity. Owners would do well to arm themselves with proper knowledge of when the Notice of Non-Responsibility will and will not protect them and then responsibly use the Notice of Non-Responsibility.
For the legal eagles among you, the following cases illustrate the view of the courts, consistent with the above: Baker v. Hubbard (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 226; Ott Hardware v. Yost (1945) 69 Cal. App.2d 593 (lease terms); Los Banos Gravel Co. v. Freeman (1976) 58 Cal.App.3d 785 (common interest); Howard S. Wright Construction Co. v. Superior Court (2003); 106 Cal.App.4th 314 (participating owner).
William L. Porter of
Porter Law Group, Inc. located in Sacramento, California may be contacted at (916) 381-7868 or bporter@porterlaw.com
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