Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

A Court-Side Seat: Environmental Developments on the Ninth Circuit

July 13, 2020 — Anthony B. Cavender - Gravel2Gavel
On May 26, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided three significant environmental law cases. Two of these cases involved whether global warming tort cases could be brought in California state courts on, for example, a public nuisance claim, and whether the defendant energy companies had the right to have them removed to the federal courts. County of San Mateo, et al. v. Chevron Corp., et al. and City of Oakland v. BP PLC, et al. While acknowledging the immensity of the legal issues, the Ninth Circuit held that the federal removal statutes did not permit these cases to be removed to the federal courts. For one thing, state court jurisdiction was not preempted by the Clean Air Act. Accordingly, the court affirmed the ruling of Federal Judge Chhabria in the Chevron case, and vacated Judge Alsup’s ruling in the BP case that he had jurisdiction to hear this case pursuant to federal common law, and then to dismiss it. The court also remanded the case to Judge Alsup, and directed him to determine if there was an “alternate basis” for federal court jurisdiction based on the pleadings that an issue of ”navigable waters” was a concern. 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

BIOHM Seeks to Turn Plastic Waste into Insulation Material with Mushrooms

July 27, 2020 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
BIOHM is a research and development led UK start-up that aims to revolutionize the construction industry with its bio-based materials. Among their products are insulation panels made from mycelium, the root formations of fungi. Recently, the company discovered that certain fungal species can consume plastic as a food source. This invention could bring about new construction materials that originate from plastic waste. “Evolving from eating leaf matter and the odd bit of tree bark, to eating plastic might seem like a huge jump, but for certain fungi, it can actually happen very quickly. The inhabitants of the microbial world are far more genetically flexible than humans, able to evolve and adapt to their environment within a generation, constantly modifying and improving upon their genome to maximize their productivity,” says Samantha G.R. Jenkins, Lead Biotechnology Engineer. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

VOSH Jumps Into the Employee Misclassification Pool

February 23, 2016 — Christopher G. Hill – Construction Law Musings
The proper classification of workers by construction companies has been on the radar of the Department of Labor for both the US and Virginia governments for quite a while. While most of the misclassification is innocent and not done to create issues, there have been enough instances of purposeful misclassification of certain workers as independent contractors (thus avoiding workers comp and other payroll expenses) that innocent contractors have born the brunt of these issues through increased payroll costs over those that misclassify (in the form of necessarily higher bids, higher overhead, etc.). As an additional deterrent to improper classification of workers, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry has issued guidelines for what will occur in Virginia Department of Safety and Health (VOSH) cases. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Christopher G. Hill, Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, PC
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

Pending Sales of Existing Homes in U.S. Decline for Eighth Month

March 31, 2014 — Shobhana Chandra – Bloomberg
Contracts to purchase previously owned U.S. homes unexpectedly fell in February for an eighth straight month, a sign of further weakness in the industry. The index of pending home sales decreased 0.8 percent after a 0.2 percent drop the prior month that was previously reported as a gain, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 39 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.2 percent rise. Colder-than-normal weather probably played a role in discouraging prospective buyers faced with rising mortgage rates, higher prices and limited supply of cheaper properties. At the same time, the Realtors group said buyer traffic is stabilizing, which may help spur demand as temperatures warm. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Shobhana Chandra, Bloomberg
Ms. Chandra may be contacted at schandra1@bloomberg.net

A New Perspective on Mapping Construction Sites with the Crane Camera System

November 10, 2016 — Aarni Heiskanen – AEC Business
In this interview, Julian Norton, Business Development Manager of Pix4D, talks about the company’s innovative mapping system for construction sites. Pix4D has just launched an early adopter program and is looking for test users. Can you say a few words about your company’s background and mission? Pix4D was founded in 2011 as a spinoff of EPFL, a leading Swiss tech university. The years of leading scientific research in photogrammetry and computer vision done by our founders was applied to drones long before drone mapping became a “thing.” Fast forward through more years of hard work to now, and you’ll see Pix4D specialized in professional drone mapping software to produce orthomosaics, 3D models, digital surface models, point clouds and more, all from images. Our solutions are purposed towards four main industries: surveying, agriculture, real estate and construction. We want our professional clients to benefit from our unique hybrid approach, which combines mobile data capture with cloud and desktop hardware, to conduct mapping in a way that fits them best. Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aarni@aepartners.fi

DOJ to Prosecute Philadelphia Roofing Company for Worker’s Death

June 17, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
While Construction Dive reported that it’s rare for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute employers for on-the-job deaths, the DOJ “plans to prosecute the owner of a Philadelphia roofing company for alleged crimes that the government claims led to the death of a construction worker.” According to Construction Dive, James J. McCullaugh, owner of James J. McCullagh Roofing Inc. has been accused of lying to US. Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators “in an attempt to cover up his company’s failure to provide required fall protection for a man – Mark T. Smith – who died after falling 45 feet from a church roof in 2013. Two other workers said no fall protection was provided.” Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

NAHB Speaks Out Against the Clean Water Act Expansion

March 26, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) published a news release that declared that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to expand the Clean Water Act “goes too far.” The EPA’s proposed expansion of the act would “increase the cost of new homes without a corresponding benefit to America’s lakes, rivers and other water bodies,” NAHB alleged. Kevin Kelly, NAHB president and a home builder and developer from Wilmington, Del., stated that the “EPA has added just about everything into its jurisdiction by expanding the definition of a ‘tributary’ – even ditches and manmade canals, or any other feature that a regulator determines to have a bed, bank and high-water mark. It’s a waste of taxpayer resources to treat a rainwater ditch with the same scrutiny as we would the Delaware Bay.” Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

Event-Cancellation Insurance Issues During a Pandemic

September 07, 2020 — Lorelie S. Masters & Latosha M. Ellis - Hunton Andrews Kurth
As the effects of coronavirus continue, organizations and companies now are considering whether events in late 2020 and early 2021 can take place or need to be converted to virtual events. What insurance effects will those changes and cancellations have? Consideration of these important decisions requires a review of both event-cancellation insurance and a consideration of force majeure and other such issues. On the insurance front, years ago, many policyholders purchased event-cancellation insurance for events in 2020, 2021, and even as far out as 2024. Such policies, purchased before the middle of March 2020, generally contain explicit coverage “buy-backs” for losses from “communicable disease.” That is, the policyholders paid an extra, specifically identified premium to remove any exclusion for communicable disease from these policies. Typically, these policies do not use the word, “virus”, but rather use “communicable disease”; and exclude neither. Those policies typically cover a specified amount of net profit and include additional coverages for “Cost of Remedial Action”, “Future Marketing Expense”, etc., over and above that specified amount of coverage. Reprinted courtesy of Lorelie S. Masters, Hunton Andrews Kurth and Latosha M. Ellis, Hunton Andrews Kurth Ms. Masters may be contacted at lmasters@HuntonAK.com Ms. Ellis may be contacted at lellis@HuntonAK.com Read the court decision
Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of

FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES