Plaintiffs Not Barred from Proving Causation in Slip and Fall Case, Even With No Witnesses and No Memory of Fall Itself
February 01, 2022 —
David Hoynacki, Arezoo Jamshidi & Lawrence S. Zucker II - Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLPOn January 19, 2022, the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District (Los Angeles), held that a plaintiff is not barred as a matter of law from proving causation in a slip and fall case if there were no witnesses to the fall, and the plaintiff does not remember the fall itself. The Court of Appeal stated specifically that circumstantial evidence would permit a jury to make a “reasonable and probable inference” regarding contributing factors to a fall, even with no eye-witness evidence.
In
Kaney v. Mazza (BC619247, Jan. 19, 2022), plaintiff and appellant Lydia Kaney (Kaney), was visiting her sister in her rented home in September of 2014. At some point during the visit, the light in the bathroom at the top of the stairs stopped working—Kaney used the stairs, and fell. Kaney filed suit against her sister and the owner of the home alleging premises liability, negligence, and violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In her deposition, Kaney testified that she remembered going up to the bathroom, and then waking up on the floor in pain. She could not remember how she fell; she did not know if she had missed a step, or if she had slipped and fallen backwards. She speculated that a worn-out bath mat may have been the cause of the slip and fall because the rubber traction on the bath mat was worn away.
Reprinted courtesy of
David Hoynacki, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP,
Arezoo Jamshidi, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP and
Lawrence S. Zucker II, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
Mr. Hoynacki may be contacted at dhoynacki@hbblaw.com
Ms. Jamshidi may be contacted at ajamshidi@hbblaw.com
Mr. Zucker may be contacted at lzucker@hbblaw.com
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Newmeyer & Dillion Named as One of the 2018 Best Places to Work in Orange County for Seventh Consecutive Year
August 15, 2018 —
Newmeyer & DillionNEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – JULY 23, 2018 – Prominent business and real estate law firm Newmeyer & Dillion LLP is proud to be selected as one of the 2018 Best Places to Work in Orange County in the category of medium sized companies. This marks the seventh consecutive year Newmeyer & Dillion LLP has made the list, affirming that its profound commitment to professionalism and client service is shared among its workforce. The ranking was released in a special section of the Orange County Business Journal's July 23 issue.
Jeff Dennis, Newmeyer & Dillion's Managing Partner, commends the effort of each employee in achieving this result. "Together, we strive to maintain an innovative, collaborative and creative culture that cannot be matched anywhere else, and we are sincerely grateful for each of our employees' ongoing commitment to the firm's values."
The awards program was created in 2009 and is a project of the Orange County Business Journal and Best Companies Group. This county-wide survey and awards program was designed to identify, recognize and honor the best places of employment in Orange County, California, benefiting the county's economy, its workforce and businesses.
For more information on the survey process for the Best Places to Work in Orange County program, visit www.BestPlacestoWorkOC.com or contact Jackie Miller at 877-455-2159.
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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Want More Transit (and Federal Funding)? Build Housing That Supports It
January 08, 2024 —
M. Nolan Gray - BloombergAfter
decades of planning (and $2.1 billion spent), Los Angeles’ newest light rail line opened in October 2022. Joined by geeky rail obsessives and chaperoned children, I rode the K Line on opening day. A blend of underground, elevated and at-grade track, it’s a route only a politician could love. Stations were lavished with public art, and when the train wasn’t stuck in traffic, it glided through the sprawl.
Yet one year later, it is Los Angeles’ least-used line, averaging
just over 2,000 riders on an average weekday this fall.
It isn’t hard to see why: The line begins at a vacant patch in Crenshaw and ends in a low-slung industrial park about six miles away, lined by strip malls the entire way. Walk one block east or west from any given station, and you’ll find yourself amid single-story postwar bungalows on 7,500-square-foot lots — all illegal to redevelop into apartments, thanks to local zoning. The Hyde Park Station deposits riders into a cluster of gas stations and drive-thru fast-food joints.
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M. Nolan Gray, Bloomberg
NJ Court Reaffirms Rule Against Coverage for Faulty Workmanship Claims and Finds Fraud Claims Inherently Intentional
September 20, 2021 —
Anthony L. Miscioscia & Frank J. Perch, III - White and Williams LLPAwarding summary judgment to an insurer under both liability and directors & officers (D&O) coverage parts, a New Jersey trial court reaffirmed the principle that claims of defective workmanship without resulting “property damage” are not covered under a general liability policy, and further dismissed claims for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, finding that such claims were inherently intentional and do not state a covered “occurrence.”
In Velez v. AR Management Company, et al., 2021 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 1675 (Law Div. Bergen Co. Aug. 10, 2021), owners of a condominium unit rebuilt after a fire sued the condominium association, several association board members, the association’s property management company and the general contractor for the reconstruction work. The owners’ suit alleged faulty workmanship and incomplete repairs. In addition, the owners asserted fraud and breach of fiduciary duty claims against the management company, alleging conflicts of interest and self-dealing between the management company and the general contractor, which had common ownership.
In a third-party complaint, the management company sought coverage from the condo association’s liability and D&O insurer. The court dismissed the D&O coverage claim, noting that the management company was not a director or officer or otherwise entitled to insured status for the D&O coverage part.
Reprinted courtesy of
Anthony L. Miscioscia, White and Williams LLP and
Frank J. Perch, III, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Miscioscia may be contacted at misciosciaa@whiteandwilliams.com
Mr. Perch may be contacted at perchf@whiteandwilliams.com
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Not So Unambiguous: California Court of Appeal Finds Coverage for Additional Insured
October 11, 2017 —
Malcom Ranger-Murdock - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.California’s Fourth District Court of Appeal recently determined that manuscript additional insured endorsements (AIEs), which purportedly provided coverage for ongoing operations only, were ambiguous. The court also found the insurer that issued the policies, American Safety Indemnity Co. (American Safety), acted in bad faith due to its systematic efforts to deny coverage to general contractors as additional insureds.
In Pulte Home Corp. v. American Safety Indemnity Co.,1 Pulte Home Corporation (Pulte Home), a general contractor, sued American Safety for failure to defend Pulte Home as an additional insured in connection with two underlying construction defect lawsuits. American Safety contended that it did not have a duty to defend Pulte Home because the loss occurred after the construction project was complete and the applicable AIEs did not provide coverage for completed operations, and/or because the policy’s faulty workmanship exclusions applied. The trial court awarded $1.4 million in compensatory and punitive damages to Pulte Home, and American Safety appealed.
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Malcom Ranger-Murdock, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.Mr. Ranger-Murdock may be contacted at
mrm@sdvlaw.com
Traub Lieberman Attorneys Recognized as 2021 New York – Metro Super Lawyers®
October 18, 2021 —
Traub LiebermanTraub Lieberman is pleased to announce that six Partners from the Hawthorne, NY Office have been selected to the 2021 New York - Metro Super Lawyers list.
2021 New York – Metro Super Lawyers
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Traub Lieberman
Is an Initial Decision Maker, Project Neutral, or Dispute Resolution Board Right for You?
July 14, 2016 —
David Adelstein – Florida Construction Legal UpdatesRecently, I participated in a roundtable hosted by JAMS with experienced South Florida construction lawyers and retired circuit court judges to discuss the pros and cons of utilizing an initial decision maker (“IDM” and also referred to as a project neutral) or a dispute resolution board (“DRB”) to resolve disputes on construction projects. The IDM and DRB are designed to resolve disputes, specifically claims (whether for time, money, or both), during construction to keep the project progressing forward without being bogged down by the inevitable claim. There are numerous avenues to resolve disputes without resorting to filing a lawsuit or a demand for arbitration. The thought is that dispute resolution will be facilitated by techniques designed to assist the parties with the resolution of claims during construction. While direct discussions between the parties, meetings with the executives for business decision purposes, mediations, etc., are certainly helpful, sometimes these avenues are simply not enough to truly resolve a complex claim on a construction project that occurs during construction.
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David M. Adelstein, Kirwin NorrisMr. Adelstein may be contacted at
dma@kirwinnorris.com
AI Systems and the Real Estate Industry
April 03, 2023 —
Robert G. Howard & Craig A. de Ridder - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law BlogArtificial intelligence (AI) systems captured considerable attention with the release of a large language chatbot, ChatGPT, by OpenAI, in November of last year. On March 14, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4, a more powerful “multimodal” chatbot responding to both text and images. And, on March 21, Google launched its conversational computer program, Bard, to compete with GPT-4. These chatbots allow users to initiate detailed queries or requests and receive prompt responses in complete sentences. Users are not forced to scroll through a list of results like those produced by search engines and follow-up questions can be asked.
AI systems have been touted for many years and these new breakthroughs may drastically change the way that we create content.
Notwithstanding their unprecedented capabilities, AI systems can produce imperfect results. New chatbots, for example, can generate plausible-sounding but nonsensical, biased or false responses. Accordingly, heavy fact-checking is necessary. OpenAI has warned that ChatGPT is prone to filling in replies with incorrect data if there is not enough information available on the topic on the internet. Bard includes a website disclaimer that it “may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views.” On March 20, a breach at OpenAI allowed users to see other people’s chat histories before the service was shut down. Further, there is a real risk that courts will rule that certain content generated by these systems infringes the copyright or database rights of the owner of the materials and data that the technologies relied on. When entering into agreements with AI software providers, companies should also be concerned about
other risks, including misappropriation of data, security, confidentiality, privacy and third-party claims.
Reprinted courtesy of
Robert G. Howard, Pillsbury and
Craig A. de Ridder, Pillsbury
Mr. Howard may be contacted at robert.howard@pillsburylaw.com
Mr. de Ridder may be contacted at craig.deridder@pillsburylaw.com
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