The New Industrial Revolution: Rebuilding America and the World
March 04, 2019 —
Drew Buechley - Construction ExecutiveConventional thinking says the Industrial Revolution ended more than a century ago. Yet one crucial industry has lagged behind revolutionary changes stemming from the transition from hand production methods to the use of machines and rise of factory systems. In the 1800s, these transitions caused an influx of people to urban centers, where the majority of those changes were centered. The outcome? Not enough capital or time to build adequate housing, pushing low-income newcomers into overcrowded, unsanitary slums, resulting in increased death rates and endemic levels of contagious diseases. While other industries mechanized and surged, construction remained stagnant in comparison to demand.
Fast forward to the 21st century where the U.S .benefits from a developed and industrialized world. Monumental gains in technology, combined with regulations designed to protect communities from polluted waters and disease, have drastically improved quality of life. Yet one similarity remains – the industry still struggles to build enough housing for a growing population. Urban centers have been neglected for decades while the rate of urbanization increases annually. Communities still have no access to clean drinking water and many suffer from crumbling infrastructure. Home ownership is out of reach for an entire generation, with metropolitan areas unable to keep up with demand for housing. At the very center of this lies the staid construction industry. Lagging behind the rest of the industrialized world in terms of technology advances, it has severely impacted the ability to maintain a livable nation and world.
Reprinted courtesy of
Drew Buechley, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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Hold on Just One Second: Texas Clarifies Starting Point for Negligence Statute of Limitations
July 11, 2022 —
Lian Skaf - The Subrogation StrategistIn construction or similar ongoing projects, problems often pop up. Sometimes they can pop up again and again. Making things even more complicated, one problem may affect another, seemingly new problem. When these construction problems result in property damage, timelines tend to overlap and determining when a statute of limitation begins to run for a particular claim can be difficult. Especially in states with short statute of limitations for tort claims like Texas, knowing when a statute begins to run is crucial for a subrogation professional.
In Hussion St. Bldgs., LLC v. TRW Eng’rs, Inc., No. 14-20-00641-CV, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 2193, 2022 WL 1010313, the Court of Appeals of Texas provided clarity on when the two-year statute of limitations for tort claims begins to run. Reversing the judgment from the lower court, the appellate court denied summary judgment to the defendant, holding that, despite there being existing issues with the ongoing construction project, the negligence cause of action for Hussion Street Buildings, LLC (Hussion) did not begin to run more than two years prior to filing suit.
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Lian Skaf, White and Williams LLPMr. Skaf may be contacted at
skafl@whiteandwilliams.com
Alleging Property Damage in Construction Defect Lawsuit
September 14, 2020 —
David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal UpdatesWhen there is a construction defect lawsuit, there is an insurance coverage issue or consideration. As I have said repeatedly in other articles, it is all about maximizing insurance coverage regardless of whether you are the plaintiff prosecuting the construction defect claim or the contractor(s) alleged to have committed the construction defect and property damage. It is about triggering first, the insurer’s duty to defend, and second, the insurer’s duty to indemnify its insured for the property damage.
The construction defect claim and lawsuit begins with how the claim and, then, lawsuit is couched knowing that the duty to defend is triggered by allegations in the lawsuit (complaint). Thus, preparing the lawsuit (complaint) is vital to maximize the insurer’s duty to defend its insured.
In a recent opinion out of the Eleventh Circuit, Southern-Owners Ins. Co. v. MAC Contractors of Florida, LLC, 2020 WL 4345199 (11th Cir. 2020), a general contractor was sued for construction defects in the construction of a custom home. A dispute arose pre-completion and the owner hired another contractor to complete the house and remediate construction defects. The contractor’s CGL insurer originally provided a defense to the general contractor but then withdrew the defense and filed an action for declaratory relief asking for the declaration that it had no duty to defend the contractor because the underlying lawsuit did NOT allege property damage. The trial court agreed with the contractor and granted summary judgment in its favor finding that the underlying complaint did not allege property damage beyond defective work. But, on appeal, the Eleventh Circuit reversed.
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David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at
dma@kirwinnorris.com
White and Williams Obtains Reversal on Appeal of $2.5 Million Verdict Against Electric Utility Company
September 03, 2014 —
Edward Koch, Mark Paladino, Luke Repici, & Andrew Susko – White and Williams LLPPPL Electric Utilities successfully argued on appeal that the $2.5 million plaintiff’s molded verdict awarded to an injured painting subcontractor should be vacated because the alleged evidence was legally insufficient and therefore the utility was not liable.
In Nertavich v. PPL Electric Utilities, the plaintiff argued that although the utility was a landowner out of possession of the worksite, the utility was liable because it controlled the work of the subcontractor both by contract and by conduct. PPL argued on appeal before the Superior Court of Pennsylvania that the alleged evidence of the utility company’s control was insufficient as a matter of law to constitute control over the means and methods of the subcontractor’s work, and thus, PPL was not liable as a landowner out of possession.
Reprinted courtesy of White and Williams LLP attorneys
Edward Koch,
Mark Paladino,
Luke Repici and
Andrew Susko
Mr. Koch may be contacted at koche@whiteandwilliams.com;
Mr. Paladino may be contacted at paladinom@whiteandwilliams.com;
Mr. Repici may be contacted at repicil@whiteandwilliams.com;
and Mr. Susko may be contacted at suskoa@whiteandwilliams.com
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Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Replace Lawyers Anytime Soon
April 18, 2023 —
Amir Kahana - Kahana FeldIn a recent article entitled, “A.I. Is Coming for Lawyers, Again” the New York Times explored the longstanding idea that the legal profession is most at risk of being disrupted by A.I. The article claimed that: “There are warnings that ChatGPT-style software, with its humanlike language fluency, could take over much of legal work.” And that: “Law is seen as the lucrative profession perhaps most at risk from the recent advance in A.I. because lawyers are essentially word merchants.”
The problem with these predictions is that they are based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what lawyers do, which is primarily to provide sound advice and formulate sophisticated strategy. All the wordsmithing in the world won’t make a bad case good, or vice versa. Lawyers do not have a Jedi mind trick. We analyze the facts, we make the best arguments possible under the circumstances, we advise our clients on their prospects, and we come up with a strategy for an optimal outcome, which almost always includes a path towards settlement. We are strategists and trusted advisors. Not wordsmithers.
This is not anything ChatGPT or current A.I. can do, or even come close to doing. And how do I know that? Because in a recent Wall Street Journal article, experts on self-driving cars explain that A.I. is nowhere close to being able to drive a car autonomously. In an article entitled “When Will Cars Be Fully Self-Driving?” the experts explain that the main impediment to fully autonomous vehicles is how dumb A.I. is. As one of the leading experts explains, fully autonomous cars “would require human-level artificial intelligence, and there is no commonly accepted theory on how to get there. As long as there is no human-level AI, autonomous mobility will be limited.”
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Amir Kahana, Kahana FeldMr. Kahana may be contacted at
akahana@kahanafeld.com
Nevada Governor Signs Construction Defect Reform Bill
February 26, 2015 —
Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFFAccording to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval “signed the first major Republican-backed reform bill of the 2015 session, a measure making changes to Nevada’s construction defect law.”
Sandoval stated, “During my State of the State address, I challenged the Legislature with passing meaningful construction defect reform. They have met that challenge with the Homeowner Protections Act, which discourages frivolous litigation and strengthens Nevada’s rebounding housing market,” as quoted in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The bill, which goes into effect immediately, “restricts the definition of what constitutes a home defect, repeals a provision allowing attorney fees and costs in a home defect judgment, and requires specific descriptions of defects.” It also reduces the statute of limitations from ten years to six years, and prohibits homeowner association boards from filing suits on behalf of homeowners.
Not all legislatures were in favor of the measure. For instance, Sen. Aaron Ford “called the measure the ‘homeowner rejection’ act rather than a homeowner protection act at a joint hearing on the bill,” according to the Las Vegas-Review Journal.
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Potential Problems with Cases Involving One Owner and Multiple Contractors
January 27, 2014 —
Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFFAccording to Matthew Devries’ blog, Best Practices Construction Law, problems can arise in a case with one owner and multiple contractors: “Increasingly, two or more contractors may each have a separate contract with the owner for different portions of the work on a single project.”
The problems occur when contractor responsibilities or storage sites become entangled, “for example, from one contractor’s storage of materials on a site where the other has work to perform, or from one contractor’s failure to progress with work that is preliminary to the other’s work.”
Devries adds that in “addition to claims against the other contractor, claims may also be made against the owner for failure to coordinate the work.”
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Heads I Win, Tails You Lose. Court Finds Indemnity Provision Went Too Far
May 25, 2020 —
Garret Murai - California Construction Law BlogWe all love David and Goliath stories. The underdog winning against the far stronger (and dastardly) opponent. Think Rocky Balboa versus Ivan Drago, the Star Wars Rebellion versus the Galatic Empire, Indiana Jones versus a good chunk of the Third Reich. And now, we have Margaret Williams.
The Story of Margaret Williams and her LLC
The story, told in Long Beach Unified School District v. Margaret Williams, LLC, Case No. B290069 (December 9, 2019), is about Margaret Williams. Ms. Williams (we’ll just call her “Margaret” going forward because it just sounds better when telling a story) worked for nearly ten years full-time for the Long Beach Unified School District, toiling day in and day out doing construction management and environmental compliance work, including work involving the clean up of material at a school construction site contaminated with arsenic.
Although she worked full-time for the District for nearly ten years, she wasn’t an employee. Rather, she was a contractor. And, on top of it all, as a condition of working for the District, the District required that she form a company in order to contract with the District. According to Margaret, “In order to work with the District, I was directed . . . to form a corporation or partnership. This was the only way I could work for the District: I could not enter into a contract with the District as an individual.” So, in 2006, she formed a company, simply called Margaret Williams, LLC.
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Garret Murai, Nomos LLPMr. Murai may be contacted at
gmurai@nomosllp.com
