Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Congratulations to Partners Nicole Whyte, Keith Bremer, Peter Brown, Karen Baytosh, and Associate Matthew Cox for Their Inclusion in 2022 Best Lawyers!

September 13, 2021 — Dolores Montoya - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Bremer Whyte Brown & O’Meara, LLP is proud to announce Partners Nicole Whyte, Keith Bremer, Peter Brown, and Karen Baytosh have been selected by their peers for inclusion in the 2022 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, and Associate Matthew Cox has been included in the Second Edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch. Each person is being recognized for their diligent work in the areas of Family Law, Construction, Commercial, and Personal Injury Litigation. Best Lawyers is the most respected peer-review publication in the history of the legal profession. Acknowledgment in both The Best Lawyers in America and Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch edition is widely regarded by both clients and legal professionals as a significant honor, bestowed on a lawyer by his or her peers. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Dolores Montoya, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP

Former NJ Army Base $2B Makeover is 'Buzzsaw' of Activity

June 14, 2021 — Tom Stabile - Engineering News-Record
Take a developed property the size of New York City’s Central Park with 5 million sq ft of building area, program in new construction or renovation over 20 years and across three dozen parcels for 1,600 housing units, 300,000 sq ft of civic or government space, 500,000 sq ft for retail and 2 million sq ft of offices, and you have a pretty ambitious undertaking. The $2-billion effort to redevelop Fort Monmouth, a decommissioned former U.S. Army base in the thick of New Jersey’s suburban sprawl, is all kinds of ambitious. Reprinted courtesy of Tom Stabile, Engineering News-Record ENR may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Connecticut Federal District Court Keeps Busy With Collapse Cases

October 19, 2017 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The federal district court for the district of Connecticut has faced a slew of collapse cases, recently dismissing several such cases. The policies under consideration in each case cover the "entire collapse of a covered building structure" or "the entire collapse of part of a covered building structure." The collapse must be "a sudden and accidental physical loss caused by one of a list of specific causes such as defective methods or materials. In most of the recent cases, the insured alleged that the concrete in basement walls or foundations was cracking due to a chemical reaction. It was further alleged that the chemical reaction would continue to progressively deteriorate, rendering the building structurally unstable. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawaii
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

Why Are Developers Still Pouring Billions Into Waterlogged Miami?

November 30, 2016 — James Tarmy – Bloomberg
On Sunday, an ebullient procession of artists, performers, and city residents filled Collins Avenue between Miami Beach’s 32nd and 36th streets to inaugurate the Faena Forum, a 43,000--square-foot, $150 million, performing- and visual-arts space that’s the cultural centerpiece of the Faena District, a $1 billion development comprising luxury hotels, restaurants, and real estate. The complex is the brainchild of Alan Faena, an Argentinian fashion designer-cum-developer known for his all-white outfits, and Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian born, New York-based billionaire whose net worth is estimated by Bloomberg Billionaires to be $18.6 billion. The parade/carnival/performance was was titled “Side by Tide,” which might be an overly optimistic assessment of Miami Beach's sea level. With "king tides" flooding parking garages and a University of Miami study reporting that Miami Beach has seen a 200 percent increase in flooding in the last decade, the tide isn’t on anyone’s side. It’s already beneath the city, seeping upward, often as not, through the ground’s porous limestone and into buildings’ backlogged storm drains. Aside from ruining the undercarriages of residents’ Porsches, this ground-up flooding has a second, perhaps more deleterious effect on the long-term feasibility of Miami Beach: Normal defenses against a rising ocean—such as sea walls or dykes—are useless. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of James Tarmy, Bloomberg
Mr. Tarmy may be followed on Twitter @jstarmy

Additional Insured Not Entitled to Reimbursement of Defense Costs Paid by Other Insurers

October 21, 2015 — Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law Hawaii
Con Edison ("Con Ed") was unsuccessful in arguing for defense costs that had already been paid by other insurers. Consol. Edison Co. of N.Y. v. Lexington Ins. Co., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121573 (S.D. N.Y. Sept. 9, 2015). Team, Inc. was under contract with Con Ed to provide repairs to the steam system running below the streets of New York City. The contract required Team to indemnify Con Ed for all claims resulting from personal injury or property damage connected to Team's work. Team also obtained a CGL policy naming Con Ed as an additional insured. The policy was to provide primary coverage. Any insured was responsible for the first $250,000 of costs for investigation and/or defense. On July 1, 2007, a steam distribution main, on which Team had finished working, ruptured, creating a huge crater and sending steam and debris, including asbestos insulation, into the surrounding area. The rupture caused substantial damage to nearby buildings, vehicles and underground infrastructure. It also caused personal injury, including two individuals in a tow truck that fell into the crater and a woman who suffered a fatal heart attack while running from the explosion. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law Hawaii
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

Search in Florida Collapse to Take Weeks; Deaths Reach 90

July 25, 2021 — The Associated Press (Freida Frisaro & Bobby Caina Calvan) - Bloomberg
Authorities searching for victims of a deadly collapse in Florida said Sunday they hope to conclude their painstaking work in the coming weeks as a team of first responders from Israel departed the site. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said 90 deaths have now been confirmed in last month's collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside, up from 86 a day before. Among them are 71 bodies that have been identified, and their families have been notified, she said. Some 31 people remain listed as missing. The Miami-Dade Police Department said three young children were among those recently identified. Crews continued to search the remaining pile of rubble, peeling layer after layer of debris in search of bodies. The unrelenting search has resulted in the recovery of over 14 million pounds (about 6.4 million kilograms) of concrete and debris, Levine Cava said. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Bloomberg

Chicago Criticized for Not Maintaining Elevator Inspections

October 29, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to Crain’s Chicago Business, “as few as a fifth of elevators get the required annual checkup,” Chicago Inspector General Joe Ferguson claimed. Ferguson audited the roughly 5,100 buildings that city inspectors were assigned to inspect elevators, and found that only 965 were actually inspected, reported Crain’s Chicago Business. Furthermore, “when problems were found in inspections conducted by city personnel, they often were not fixed in a timely manner, again according to city records.” Read the court decision
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Addenda to Construction Contracts Can Be an Issue

March 30, 2016 — Christopher G. Hill – Construction Law Musings
We’ve all been there. Your client either has a well drafted standard subcontract (with any luck in consultation with an experienced construction attorney) that it presents to its subcontractors and suppliers or your client is presented with a construction contract that has some provisions that it would prefer were either different or gone altogether. In the first of these scenarios, your client often gets push back from a subcontractor to change certain provisions. Such a response is not necessarily a bad thing depending on the provisions that the potential subcontractor may have. The construction contract documents will govern the way that the project moves forward and will be strictly enforced in Virginia and elsewhere so some early give and take is not unusual or unwanted. In the second scenario, your client is likely to be reading a fairly one sided document. The General Contractor has drafted the contract and is “north” of your client in the payment chain. Like it or not, they will in most instances leave it to you and your attorney to root out the particularly egregious on sided terms and seek to negotiate them to some sort of equality. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Christopher G. Hill, Law Office of Christopher G. Hill, PC
Mr. Hill may be contacted at chrisghill@constructionlawva.com

FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES