Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Floating Crane on Job in NYC's East River Has a Storied Past of Cold War Intrigue

March 22, 2017 — Nadine M. Post – Engineering News-Record
The complex maneuver of lifting heavy prefabricated modules out of New York City's East River to build a university laboratory took careful planning and the work of one particular floating crane with a complicated past. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Nadine M. Post, Engineering News-Record
Ms. Post may be contacted at postn@enr.com

Implied Warranties for Infrastructure in Florida Construction Defect Claims

December 30, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
The homeowners in the Lakeview development built by Maronda Homes in Orange County, Florida started having water and drainage problems shortly after the homeowners association took control of the community. They fought their case all the way to the Florida Supreme Court, where the question was whether implied warranties of fitness covered the community’s infrastructure. William Martin III, writing on the DestinLog, notes that previous Florida Supreme Court decisions went the other way. In a case involving a seawall, the court held that “unless the seawall was part of or in connection with the construction of a home or in support of a residence.” In the Lakeview case, they determined that the community’s infrastructure was just that: “essential to the habitability of the residence.” The court specifically included roads for ingress and egress, drainage systems to divert flooding, retention ponds to correct water flow damage, and underground pipes which are necessary for living accommodations.” Read the court decision
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UK Court Rules Against Bechtel in High-Speed Rail Contract Dispute

March 29, 2021 — Peter Reina - Engineering News-Record
The U.K. subsidiary of Bechtel Inc. has lost its legal challenge against the owner of the U.K. London-Birmingham high-speed railroad project, HS2, over its failed bid for a roughly $140-million Construction Partner (CP) contract in early 2019. Reprinted courtesy of Peter Reina, Engineering News-Record Mr. Reina may be contacted at reina@btinternet.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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2019 Promotions - New Partners at Haight

January 15, 2019 — Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
Haight proudly announces the promotion of Renata Hoddinott, Sarah Marsey and Annette Mijianovic to Partner in January 2019. Renata and Sarah joined Haight’s San Francisco office in 2016. Renata relocated from a litigation firm in the Los Angeles area. She focuses her practice on professional liability, general liability, risk management & insurance law and transportation law. Before coming to Haight, Sarah was with a respected trial firm in Anchorage, Alaska. She handles a variety of complex matters in appellate law, food safety, construction law and general liability. Annette has been with Haight’s Los Angeles office for almost 12 years. Annette joined the firm as a summer clerk in 2007 and has continued to build her practice handling cases related to commercial litigation, products liability and transportation law. Reprinted courtesy of Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP attorneys Renata L. Hoddinott, Sarah A. Marsey and Annette F. Mijanovic Ms. Hoddinott may be contacted at rhoddinott@hbblaw.com Ms. Marsey may be contacted at smarsey@hbblaw.com Ms. Mijanovic may be contacted at amijanovic@hbblaw.com Read the court decision
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2015 California Construction Law Update

December 31, 2014 — Garret Murai – California Construction Law Blog
Over 2,200 bills were introduced during the second and final year of the 2013-2014 legislative session of which 931 were signed into law. For the design and construction industry, the end of the second session, like the end of the first session, saw a number of new prevailing wage bills signed into law, which again reflected the strong Democratic majorities in both the Assembly and Senate. The end of the second session also saw the enactment of laws consolidating several existing design-build authorization sections and extending the 5% cap on retention for public works projects. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@wendel.com

City of Pawtucket Considering Forensic Investigation of Tower

October 08, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Pawtucket, Rhode Island’s mayor, Donald Grebien, has asked their city council to approve “a forensic investigation of the Pawtucket City Hall tower to determine whether the city should sue the contractor that repaired it eight years ago,” the Valley Breeze reported. Back in 2011, “city officials had been unable to locate a signed contract for the tower project as they sought to hold NER responsible for continued leaking into the structure just five years after the company's $3 million renovation project was complete,” according to the Valley Breeze. “The costs of that project grew to $4.6 million once interest was factored in.” Documents have recently been discovered that Grebien believes may open the possibility to sue NER. Read the court decision
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The Utility of Arbitration Agreements in the Construction Industry

December 30, 2019 — Brian L. Gardner & Jason R. Finkelstein - Construction Executive
In today’s ever-evolving world of employment law, it is far from an easy task for construction industry employers to operate their business while successfully navigating all of the potential legal potholes that continue to abound and multiply seemingly with every passing day. This is particularly true in the face of the onslaught of claims lodged by current and former employees in recent years for alleged unpaid wages. While there may not be a “sure bet” way of avoiding such claims, one tool that employers should strongly consider in their arsenal are arbitration and class action waiver agreements. To that end, last year, the United States Supreme Court rendered its ground-breaking decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S. ___ (2018). In Epic Systems, the Supreme Court held that arbitration agreements containing class and collective action waivers of wage and hour disputes are enforceable. At the time of the decision, a split of authority existed among courts across the country as to whether such agreements were viable. On the one hand, several courts contended that class waivers unfairly violated employees’ rights to collectively bargain under the National Labor Relations Act. On the other hand, many other courts were finding that such agreements were fully enforceable and supported by the policies promoted under the Federal Arbitration Act. The Epic Systems Court sided with this latter viewpoint, concluding that the FAA’s clear policy promoting arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism and private parties’ rights to freely negotiate contracts outweighed any potential arguments against such agreements under the NLRA. With wage and hour lawsuits being filed against construction industry employers practically daily, the Epic Systems decision is critically important. Construction employers can now freely enter into arbitration and class waiver agreements with their laborers and thereby potentially limit the cost, expense and exposure of fighting such actions in a public forum on a collective or class-wide basis. To be clear, such agreements will not eliminate employees from bringing such wage and hour claims entirely, nor should the use of those agreements signal to employers that they need not make every good-faith effort to comply with their obligations under the Federal Labor Standards Act and/or any applicable state wage and hour laws. But the reality is that arbitration and class waiver agreements can work to avoid tens or hundreds or even thousands of employees from banding together in some of the massive wage and hour lawsuits being filed across the country. Instead, employers can require that those legal battles be conducted by a single plaintiff in a more controlled environment before an arbitrator (or panel of arbitrators). Reprinted courtesy of Brian L. Gardner & Jason R. Finkelstein, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Mr. Gardner may be contacted at bgardner@coleschotz.com Mr. Finkelstein may be contacted at jfinkelstein@coleschotz.com Read the court decision
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After Sixty Years, Subcontractors are Back in the Driver’s Seat in Bidding on California Construction Projects

September 22, 2016 — William L. Porter – Porter Law Group Bulletin
For almost the last sixty years, the standard for bidding on California construction projects has been governed by the landmark case of Drennan v. Star Paving (1958) 51 Cal.2d 409; which generally states that the contractor bidding to perform work for a project owner is entitled to rely on the bids of subcontractors in formulating its own bid to do the work. Under the equitable legal doctrine of “promissory estoppel”, which serves as the foundation of the Drennan case, even though there was no actual “contract” between the contractor and subcontractor at the time of bid, the contractor was entitled to enforce the subcontractor’s bid in reliance on this doctrine. For bidding purposes, promissory estoppel serves as an equitable substitute for an actual contract. The courts have, since that time, allowed promissory estoppel to act as a substitute for the contract in public bidding because, in equity, when a contractor “reasonably” relies on a subcontractor’s bid in formulating its own bid, it would be unjust to allow the subcontractor to withdraw a bid on which the contractor had relied in submitting its own successful bid. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of William L. Porter, Porter Law Group
Mr. Porter may be contacted at bporter@porterlaw.com

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