FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

A Place to Study Eternity: Building the Giant Magellan Telescope

October 15, 2024 — Jeff Rubenstone - Engineering News-Record
Situated on a remote mountaintop in the Atacama Desert in Chile, the Giant Magellan Telescope will one day allow astronomers to peer further into the universe with a greater degree of clarity than ever before. But siting a highly sensitive instrument with seven massive, 8.4-meter-dia mirrors on a windy peak in one of the world’s most seismically active regions takes careful engineering, especially since the 12-story upper section of the 22-story telescope enclosure will have to rotate 360° with an extreme degree of precision, multiple times a night. Reprinted courtesy of Jeff Rubenstone, Engineering News-Record Mr. Rubenstone may be contacted at rubenstonej@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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GA Federal Court Holds That Jury, Not Judge, Generally Must Decide Whether Notice Was Given “As Soon as Practicable” Under First-Party Property Damage Policies

November 01, 2021 — Edward M. Koch & Lynndon K. Groff - White and Williams
Insurance policies covering first-party property damage often require insureds to notify insurers of a loss “as soon as practicable.” Where an insured may or may not have given notice “as soon as practicable,” the issue arises as to who should determine whether the insured complied with this requirement: the judge or the jury? On October 6, 2021, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia addressed this issue in Vintage Hospitality Group LLC v. National Trust Insurance Company, Case No. 3:20-cv-90-CDL, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 192651 (M.D. Ga. Oct. 6, 2021). In Vintage Hospitality, a July 2018 hailstorm damaged the roof of a hotel owned by the policyholder. The policyholder did not discover leaks from the hotel roof until two months later, in September 2018. The policyholder, not realizing that the hailstorm had caused the leaks, unsuccessfully attempted to repair the leaks. Eventually, in February 2020—19 months after the hailstorm and 17 months after the policyholder discovered the leaks—the policyholder hired a construction company to evaluate the roof. It was not until then that the policyholder learned that the hotel had sustained hail damage from the July 2018 storm. The policyholder notified its July 2018 first-party property damage insurer a few days later. Reprinted courtesy of Edward M. Koch, White and Williams and Lynndon K. Groff, White and Williams Mr. Koch may be contacted at koche@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Groff may be contacted at groffl@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Understanding Lien Waivers

September 03, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Zlien on their Construction Payment Blog explained how to read a lien waiver. According to Zlien, “Lien waivers are meant to function as a sort of receipt – if a party is paid a certain amount that party waives his or her right to claim a lien for that amount. “ The blog post breaks down the types of lien waivers, including Conditional Waivers, Unconditional Waivers, Final Payment, and Progress Payment. Once the type of waiver has been identified, Zlien suggests checking the length: “Because the party signing the lien waiver may feel obligated to sign whatever document is presented in order to get paid, unscrupulous or oblivious parties may attempt to use the lien waiver as a legal positioning tool and cram all sorts of other language into the lien waiver that really has no legitimate right or reason to be there.” Zlien recommends that if the document is long or confusing to consult an attorney. Read the court decision
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Rancosky Adopts Terletsky: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Sets Standard for Statutory Bad Faith Claims

September 28, 2017 — John Anooshian & Sean Mahoney - White & Williams LLP
Earlier today, in a case of first impression, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted the Terletsky two-part test for proving a statutory “bad faith” claim under 42 Pa. C.S.A. § 8371, which requires that a plaintiff present “clear and convincing evidence (1) that the insurer did not have a reasonable basis for denying benefits under the policy and (2) that the insurer knew of or recklessly disregarded its lack of a reasonable basis.” Rancosky v. Washington National Insurance Company, No. 28 WAP 2016 (Pa. Sept. 28, 2017). The court further ruled that proof of an insurer’s “subjective motive of self-interest or ill-will,” while potentially probative of the second prong of the test, is not a requirement to prevail under § 8371. Evidence of an insurer’s “knowledge or reckless disregard for its lack of a reasonable basis” for denying a claim alone, according to the court, is sufficient even in cases seeking punitive damages. Reprinted courtesy of John Anooshian, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. and Sean Mahoney, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C. Mr. Anooshian may be contacted at anooshianj@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Mahoney may be contacted at majoneys@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Taking Advantage of New Tax Credits and Prevailing Wage Bonuses Under the Inflation Reduction Act for Clean Energy Construction Projects

September 02, 2024 — Abby Bello Salinas, Jennifer Harris & Sahara Mokhtari - ConsensusDocs
Introduction: IRA Boosts U.S. Construction Industry On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the “IRA”) into law.[1] The IRA marked a legislative milestone for clean energy in the United States in part by providing funding mechanisms for clean energy infrastructure projects. This new emphasis on green projects has already created a surge of opportunities across the construction industry—the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) estimates that IRA clean energy projects will create over 1.5 million jobs over the next decade.[2] But what can contractors do to take advantage of IRA incentives to reduce costs, build a reliable workforce, and gain a competitive advantage in the new infrastructure landscape created by the ever-increasing number of IRA-related projects? The IRS Final Rule, 89 FR 53184 (29 CFR 1), effective August 26, 2024, provides some guidance by outlining the increased credits and deductions available to taxpayers that satisfy the criteria under the IRA, such as prevailing wage and registered apprenticeship requirements. Reprinted courtesy of Abby Bello Salinas, Peckar & Abramson, P.C., Jennifer Harris, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. and Sahara Mokhtari, Georgetown Law Class of 2025 Ms. Salinas may be contacted at asalinas@pecklaw.com Ms. Harris may be contacted at jharris@pecklaw.com Read the court decision
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A Retrospective As-Built Schedule Analysis Can Be Used to Support Delay

May 23, 2022 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
Delay claims are part of construction. There should be no surprise why. Time is money. A delay claim should be accompanied by expert opinions that bolster evidence that gets introduced. The party against whom the delay claim is made will also have an expert – a rebuttal expert. Not surprisingly, each of the experts will rely on a different critical path as to relates to the same project. The party claiming delay will rely on a critical path that shows the actions of the other party impacted their critical path and proximately caused the delay. This will be refuted by the opposing expert that will challenge the critical path and the actions claimed had no impact on the critical path (i.e., did not proximately cause the delay). Quintessential finger pointing! This was the situation in CTA I, LLC v. Department of Veteran Affairs, CBCA 5826, 2022 WL 884710 (CBCA 2022), where the government terminated the contractor for convenience and the contractor claimed equitable adjustments for, among other things, delay. The contractor’s expert relied on an as-built critical path analysis by “retrospectively creating updates to insert between the contemporaneous updates.” Id., supra, n.3. The government’s expert did not do a retrospective as-built analysis and relied on only contemporaneous schedule updates. Id. Read the court decision
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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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Undocumented Debris at Mississippi Port Sparks Legal Battle

July 26, 2017 — Jim Parsons - Engineering News-Record
Undocumented underground debris fields at a Gulf of Mexico port project are at the heart of a contractor’s nearly $50-million federal lawsuit against the Mississippi Development Authority and eight engineering and construction consultants. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jim Parsons, ENR
ENR may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com

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Insurer’s Discovery Requests Ruled to be Overbroad in Construction Defect Suit

October 28, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

The US District Court has ruled in the case of D.R. Horton Los Angeles Holding Co. Inc. v. American Safety Indemnity, Co. D.R. Horton was involved in a real estate development project. Its subcontractor, Ebensteiner Co., was insured by ASIC and named D.R. Horton as an additional insured and third-party beneficiary. D.R. Horton, in response to legal complaints and cross-complaints, filed for coverage from ASIC under the Ebensteiner policy. This was refused by ASIC. ASIC claimed that “there is no potential coverage for Ebensteiner as a Named Insurer and/or D.R. Horton as an Additional Insured.” They stated that “the requirements for coverage are not satisfied.”

The case same to trial with the deadline for discovery set at March 1, 2011. ASIC stated they were seeking the developer’s “job file” for the Canyon Gate project. D.R. Horton claimed that ASIC’s discovery request was overbroad and that it would be “unduly burdensome for it to produce all documents responsive to the overbroad requests.”

D.R. Horton did agree to produce several categories of documents, which included:

“(1) final building inspection sign-offs for the homes that are the subject of the underlying litigation;(2) an updated homeowner matrix for the underlying actions; (3) the concrete subcontractor files; (4) the daily field logs for D.R. Horton’s on-site employee during Ebensteiner’s work; (5) documents relating to concrete work, including documents for concrete suppliers; (6) documents relating to compacting testing; (7) documents relating to grading; and (8) D.R. Horton’s request for proposal for grading”

The court found that the requests from ASIC were overbroad, noting that the language of the ASIC Request for Production of Documents (RFP) 3-5 would include “subcontractor files for plumbing, electric, flooring, etc. - none of these being at issue in the case.” The court denied the ASIC’s motion to compel further documents.

The court also found fault with ASIC’s RFPs 6 and 7. Here, D.R. Horton claimed the language was written so broadly it would require the production of sales information and, again, subcontractors not relevant to the case.

Further, the court found that RFPs 8, 10, 11, and 13 were also overbroad. RFP 8 covered all subcontractors. D.R. Horton replied that they had earlier complied with the documents covered in RFPs 10 and 11. The court concurred. RFP 13 was denied as it went beyond the scope of admissible evidence, even including attorney-client communication.

The court denied all of ASIC’s attempts to compel further discovery.

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