Cambridge Massachusetts Building Expert Directory

Newmeyer Dillion Secures Victory For Crown Castle In Years-Long Litigation With City Council Of Piedmont Over Small Cell Wireless Telecommunications Sites

December 30, 2019 — Newmeyer Dillion
Newmeyer Dillion, a prominent business and real estate law firm, is pleased to announce that, on November 18, 2019, the City Council of the City of Piedmont unanimously voted to approve the installation of 17 small cell wireless telecommunications sites by Newmeyer Dillion client Crown Castle NG West LLC, the leading provider of shared communications infrastructure in the United States. This victory ends a long-running legal dispute over Crown Castle's small cell wireless network, which was vehemently opposed by Piedmont residents and previously rejected by the City Council, prompting Newmeyer Dillion to bring a lawsuit against the city in 2017. The dispute began in 2016 when Crown Castle filed an application with the City Council of the City of Piedmont to build nine small cell wireless sites designed to provide critical wireless telecommunications coverage in Piedmont. In October 2017, the Council denied the network, rejecting some of the proposed sites or approving others with onerous conditions. Newmeyer Dillion's Government, Land Use and Environmental practice group filed a lawsuit on behalf of Crown Castle in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in November 2017, challenging the Council's decision. Drawing from the language established in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the lawsuit alleged that Piedmont's ordinances established an unreasonably high bar of approval, unlawfully prohibiting telecommunications services in the city. The city quickly requested a court-supervised settlement, which was approved by the City Council in December 2018 and allowed Crown Castle to reapply to build 17 small cell wireless telecommunications facilities. The unanimous City Council approval came after extensive mediation work between the two parties. "We are excited that our years-long efforts have culminated in this major win for Crown Castle, allowing them to build out critical telecommunications infrastructure in the City of Piedmont," said Michael Shonafelt, partner at Newmeyer Dillion. "With the growing national need for robust telecommunications networks that can handle voice communication and modern data demands, approvals such as this are significant, not just for the community the network serves, but for the viability of the national telecommunications network as a whole. Our team is proud to be using our multidisciplinary, business-oriented approach to successfully advise clients navigating these issues." About Newmeyer Dillion For 35 years, Newmeyer Dillion has delivered creative and outstanding legal solutions and trial results for a wide array of clients. With over 70 attorneys practicing in all aspects of corporate, privacy & data security, employment, real estate, construction, insurance law and trial work, Newmeyer Dillion delivers legal services tailored to meet each client's needs. Headquartered in Newport Beach, California, with offices in Walnut Creek, California and Las Vegas, Nevada, Newmeyer Dillion attorneys are recognized by The Best Lawyers in America©, and Super Lawyers as top tier and some of the best lawyers in California, and have been given Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review's AV Preeminent® highest rating. For additional information, call 949.854.7000 or visit www.newmeyerdillion.com. Read the court decision
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Traub Lieberman Attorneys Recognized as 2022 Illinois Super Lawyers® and Rising Stars

February 21, 2022 — Traub Lieberman
Traub Lieberman is pleased to announce that two Partners from the Chicago, IL office have been selected to the 2022 Illinois Super Lawyers list. In addition, three Partners have been named to the 2022 Super Lawyers Rising Stars list. 2022 Illinois Super Lawyers

Brian Bassett – Insurance Coverage
Dana Rice – Insurance Coverage

2022 Super Lawyers Rising Stars

Brandt Allen – Insurance Coverage
Jessica Kull – Civil Litigation: Defense
Jeremy Macklin – Insurance Coverage

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Construction Litigation Roundup: “Apparently, It’s Not Always Who You Know”

December 16, 2023 — Daniel Lund III - Lexology
A respondent party in a pair of international arbitrations on the losing end of roughly $285,000,000 in adverse awards attacked the awards based upon arbitrator bias. “If there is one bedrock rule in the law of arbitration, it is that a federal court can vacate an arbitral award only in exceptional circumstances. … The presumption against vacatur applies with even greater force when a federal court reviews an award rendered during an international arbitration.” Applying the Federal Arbitration Act (according to the court, the international arbitrations were “seated” in the United States and fell under the New York Convention, such that the FAA is required to be the basis for vacatur efforts), the court examined assertions that certain alleged non-disclosures by the panel “concealed information related to the arbitrators’ possible biases and thereby ‘deprived [respondent] of [its] fundamental right to a fair and consensual dispute resolution process.’” The aggrieved party urged that one arbitrator’s undisclosed nomination of another arbitrator to serve as president of another arbitral panel – “a position that sometimes pays hundreds of thousands of dollars” – possibly influenced the second arbitrator to side with the first. Assertions were also levied that the arbitrators’ undisclosed work with the attorneys for the claimant in other arbitrations “allowed them to become familiar with each other, creating a potential conflict of interest.” 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

After Pittsburgh Bridge Collapse, Fast-Rising Replacement Emerges

February 01, 2023 — Jim Parsons - Engineering News-Record
A spirit of celebration was in the air last August as Pittsburgh residents cheered a 155-ft-long bulb-tee beam making its way up a narrow street to the entrance of historic Frick Park, where work was underway on a three-span prestressed concrete replacement for the 50-year-old Fern Hollow Bridge that collapsed in January. 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 Makes an Unsettling Inference to Find that the Statute of Limitations Bars Claims Arising from a 1997 Northridge Earthquake Settlement

April 15, 2015 — David W. Evans and Stephen J. Squillario – Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP
In Britton v. Girardi (No. B249232 – Filed 4/1/2015), the Second Appellate District upheld the trial court’s dismissal due to the statute of limitations based on an inference it drew from a letter attached to the complaint, while reaffirming its prior application of the limitations period in Probate Code section 16460 for fraud claims in the related case of Prakashpalan v. Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack (2/27/2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 1105. In Britton, just as in Prakashpalan, the plaintiffs sued the attorneys who had represented them in connection with claims against their insurer arising out of the Northridge earthquake. In 1997, the attorneys had settled that litigation for more than $100 million. The plaintiffs allege that the attorneys breached their fiduciary duty by (1) failing to provide an accounting for the settlement, (2) failing to obtain their informed consent to the settlement, and (3) concealing their misappropriation of the settlement funds. They claim that they did not discover this wrongdoing until nearly fifteen years later, in 2012, when the Prakashpalans contacted them about their settlement. Significantly, the plaintiffs attached as an exhibit to the complaint a page of the November 3, 1997 letter to the Prakashpalans (rather than the plaintiffs), which stated that a retired judge who presided over the settlement had determined the allocations and the attorneys could not distribute the proceeds until the plaintiffs signed the “Master Settlement Agreement” by which the plaintiffs agreed to its terms and to give up all claims against the insurer. Reprinted courtesy of David W. Evans, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP and Stephen J. Squillario, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP Mr. Evans may be contacted at devans@hbblaw.com Mr. Squillario may be contacted at ssquillario@hbblaw.com Read the court decision
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Public-Private Partnerships: When Will Reality Meet the Promise?

October 09, 2018 — Richard Fechner, GHD - Engineering News-Record
The promise of public-private partnerships (P3s) seems irresistible. The $4.5-trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers says the U.S. must spend on at-risk infrastructure by 2025 is a backlog beyond the collective means of local, state and federal governments to fund and deliver. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Richard Fechner, GHD, ENR
ENR may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com

Enhanced Geothermal Energy Could Be the Next Zero-Carbon Hero

June 10, 2024 — Sidney L. Fowler, Robert A. James & Clarence H. Tolliver - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
Hydrogen, solar, wind—and even microwave beams from outer space—are a few of the alternative energies being explored as the world strives to cut the cord on carbon emissions. Recently, advancements in geothermal energy technologies appear poised to significantly expand geothermal’s reach. These new methods, varyingly referred to as enhanced, engineered or advanced geothermal systems (collectively referred to here as EGS), have recently made strides in scalability and grabbed the attention of changemakers. If successful, EGS may play a major role in the clean energy transition. The technique creates no emissions and is virtually limitless (it pulls from heat generated by the Earth’s core), and can provide constant baseload power, making it appealing to green-minded investors. This article calls attention to the progress and variety of EGS projects and proposals that Pillsbury sees as part of the ongoing energy transition. People have long been drawn to geothermal energy, with Paleo-Americans settling at hot springs some 10,000 years ago. In 1892, Boise, Idaho, became the first town to establish a district heating system that piped naturally occurring hot water from underground and into homes. It would take another 70 years for other cities to replicate the feat, but now 17 U.S. districts use such systems, along with dozens more worldwide. Reprinted courtesy of Sidney L. Fowler, Pillsbury, Robert A. James, Pillsbury and Clarence H. Tolliver, Pillsbury Mr. Fowler may be contacted at sidney.fowler@pillsburylaw.com Mr. James may be contacted at rob.james@pillsburylaw.com Mr. Tolliver may be contacted at clarence.tolliver@pillsburylaw.com Read the court decision
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Insurer's Motion to Dismiss Allegations of Collapse Rejected

August 08, 2018 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
In yet another of the collapse cases being litigated in state and federal courts in Connecticut, the federal district court denied the insurer's motion to dismiss. Rosenberger v. Amica Mut. Ins. Co., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95345 (D. Conn. June 6, 2018). The insureds had policies with Amica since 1989. Policies before December 18, 2006, covered collapse caused by hidden decay or other specified causes. "Collapse" was not defined by the policy. These policies did not include any provisions explicitly excluding coverage for a chemical reaction. The post-2006 policies held by the insureds covered collapse, but under a significantly modified definition. The newer policy language stated that "collapse applies only to an abrupt collapse." Further, collapse was defined as "an abrupt falling down or caving in of a building or any part of a building with the result that the building or part of the building cannot be occupied for its intended purpose." Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

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