SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

“Since You Asked. . .”

October 15, 2024 — Daniel Lund III - Lexology
… you must now pay. So said a California appellate court, affirming the trial court’s decision against a subcontractor suing for unpaid subcontract sums. Instead of being awarded those unpaid amounts, the subcontractor lost the case and was tagged with a $1.55 million attorney’s fees award and $270,000 costs award in favor of the defendants. What went wrong? California law requires a licensed contractor to maintain at all times proper workers’ compensation insurance coverage. The failure to maintain the coverage and have the certificate of coverage on file with the California Contractors State License Board results in “automatic and immediate suspension” of the contractor license. Retroactive reinstatement of the license may occur only if the contractor provides proof of the insurance within 90 days of the effective date of the insurance certificate – unless the contractor can show that failure to have the certificate on file was “due to circumstances beyond the control of the licensee.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Daniel Lund III, Phelps
Mr. Lund may be contacted at daniel.lund@phelps.com

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Congratulations 2020 DE, MA, NY and PA Super Lawyers and Rising Stars

November 16, 2020 — White and Williams LLP
Sixteen White and Williams lawyers have been named by Super Lawyers as a Delaware, Massachusetts, New York or Pennsylvania "Super Lawyer" while eleven received "Rising Star" designations. Lawyers are selected through a process that takes into consideration peer recognition and professional achievement. The lawyers named to this year’s list represent a multitude of practices throughout the firm. Reprinted courtesy of White and Williams LLP Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Building a Case: Document Management for Construction Litigation

October 07, 2019 — Robert A. Gallagher, Jane Fox Lehman, & Michael I. Frankel, Pepper Hamilton LLP - ConsensusDocs
Success in construction litigation often turns less on counsel’s ability to craft legal arguments and more on counsel’s ability to gather, master and present the often complex set of facts underlying the case. In construction matters, most of the key facts are found in documents: contract documents, drawings, plans and specifications, schedules, submittals, progress reports, daily logs, change orders, invoices and payment records. Nowadays, these documents will almost certainly be created, exchanged and stored electronically; many will never exist in hard copy. As such, timely collection, organization and analysis of electronically stored information (ESI) is crucially important in construction litigation. The construction industry has always involved a large quantity of records. Today, the majority of those records exist only as ESI: Design professionals use computer-aided design (CAD) software to create construction plans. Construction managers use Primavera or similar software to create schedules and workflows. Estimators use job cost control programs. Innovative firms capture digital photos of the project, from mobilization through the punch process. Because ESI is created and exchanged at a higher rate than hard-copy documents, ESI has facilitated a dramatic increase in the volume of records associated with construction projects. Further compounding the increase is the proliferation of mobile devices. With a smartphone in every pocket, ESI creation has moved out of the home office and the site trailer and onto the site itself. As the volume of ESI expands, so too does the time and expense associated with storing, processing, reviewing and producing these records. This article will cover strategies for balancing time and expense with the requirements of the rules and the needs of the case. Reprinted courtesy of Pepper Hamilton LLP attorneys Robert A. Gallagher, Jane Fox Lehman and Michael I. Frankel Mr. Gallagher may be contacted at gallagherr@pepperlaw.com Ms. Lehman may be contacted at lehmanj@pepperlaw.com Mr. Frankel may be contacted at frankelm@pepperlaw.com Read the court decision
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Contract Change #8: Direct Communications between Owners and Contractors (law note)

March 28, 2018 — Melissa Dewey Brumback - Construction Law in North Carolina
As the Engineer or Architect of Record, you probably have frequently experienced Owners and Contractors communicating directly, in direct contravention of the language of the contract that requires them to endeavor to route all communications through the design team. With the latest version of the 201, direct communication is now authorized, to recognize both the reality of what was happening on the ground and to recognize that sometimes Owners and Contractors may need to communicate without waiting for the design team. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Melissa Dewey Brumback, Construction Law in North Carolina

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Lockton Expands Construction and Design Team

July 19, 2011 — CDJ STAFF

Lockton Companies, LLC, the largest privately held independent insurance broker, has announced that it is expanding its construction and design team with the hiring of Karen Erger and Tom Miller.



Ms. Erger will provide professional liability practice management, loss prevention, contract and complex claims management consulting services to Lockton's architectural, engineering and construction clients in her role as Vice President, Director of Practice Management. Her background includes construction litigation at a leading construction law firm, professional liability claims defense and claims consulting for major professional liability underwriters.



Miller joins Lockton as a Senior Vice President within the Design and Construction Unit. His role will be dedicated to serving the needs of engineering, architecture and construction firms performing services around the globe. He has spent more than 15 years concentrating on professional liability for design professionals and contractors in multiple roles. He previously managed the professional liability underwriting of one of the largest construction insurers and has developed numerous manuscript insurance products as well as focused on strategic planning to enhance business unit opportunities.



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Will Maryland Beltway Developer's Exit Doom $7.6B P3 Project?

March 13, 2023 — Jim Parsons - Engineering News-Record
Maryland’s controversial $7.6-billion plan to build tolled express lanes along two Washington, DC-area interstates has suffered a potentially fatal blow with the departure of the private development consortium from the project. Reprinted courtesy of Jim Parsons, Engineering News-Record ENR may be contacted at enr@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Court’s Ruling on SB800 “Surprising to Some”

October 16, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Describing it as “surprising to many in the residential home building industry,” Jay Drake of Reuben, Junius & Rose LLP has a piece discussing the recent California Court of Appeals decision that SB800 is not a homeowner’s only remedy for construction defects. The court found, according to Mr. Drake that “the primary purpose of the Act was to provide a property owner with remedies for repair of construction defects before the defects caused actual damages.” In the case before the court, the construction defects had already lead to further damages. Mr. Drake notes that the legislative history of SB800 puts the bill in response to an earlier California court case in which the courts determined that without actual damage to property, a homeowner could not file a construction defect lawsuit. The court concluded that SB800 was not intended to limit the homeowner’s rights after a construction defect situation has lead to damage. Read the court decision
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Construction Contractor “Mean Tweets” Edition

June 04, 2024 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Back in the day, if someone had a problem with you the rules of school yard jungle dictated that they had better tell it to your face or you had the right to call them out on it. That, of course, was back then. These days, with social media seemingly everywhere (e.g., Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), if someone has a problem with you they tell you . . . as well as the rest of the world . . . to your digital face. Jimmy Kimmel has even made it a “thing” with his celebrity “Mean Tweets” segments. In Paglia & Associates Construction, Inc. v. Hamilton, 98 Cal.App.5th 318 (2023), homeowner Vanessa Hamilton was sued by her contractor Paglia & Associates Construction, Inc. doing business as Protech Construction after she posted critical comments to her blog and on Yelp about work performed by Paglia at her home. The Paglia Case In or about 2016, after a tree fell on her house, Hamilton’s insurer, Safeco, recommended Paglia to perform the repairs. Paglia and Hamilton entered into a repair contract in 2016 but Paglia did not finish the work until sometime in 2017 claiming that the repair was extensive because Hamilton’s circa 1923 home was in poor condition and current building codes required extensive reconstruction. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

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