Columbus Ohio Building Expert Directory

Home Prices in 20 U.S. Cities Rise Most Since February 2006

January 29, 2014 — Jeanna Smialek – Bloomberg
Home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose in November from a year ago by the most in almost eight years, providing a boost to household wealth. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property prices in 20 cities climbed 13.7 percent from November 2012, the biggest 12-month gain since February 2006, after a 13.6 percent increase in the year ended in October, a report from the group showed today in New York. The median projection of 31 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 13.8 percent advance. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jeanna Smialek, Bloomberg
Ms. Smialek may be contacted at jsmialek1@bloomberg.net

California Statutes Authorizing Public-Private Partnership Contracting

February 01, 2022 — Robert A. James & Shade Oladetimi - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
Public-private partnerships are often cited as a key pathway to restoring and enhancing the nation’s infrastructure. They can be challenging arrangements to structure. (As a result of the pandemic, they have even suffered the indignity of having their “PPP” acronym coopted by the Paycheck Protection Program. With apologies to Small Business Administration practitioners, we use “PPP” in this article to refer to the infrastructure tool.) One gating condition to setting up a PPP is identifying the authority for a public entity to use a contracting method that does not run afoul of the general requirements that (i) works of improvement be let to the lowest responsive bid by a responsible bidder and (ii) design services be awarded through a qualifications-based selection process. Integrated forms of project delivery that vest in a single concessionaire multiple design, construction, financing, operation, maintenance and entrepreneurial roles must find an exception to any applicable background rules. Reprinted courtesy of Robert A. James, Pillsbury and Shade Oladetimi, Pillsbury Mr. James may be contacted at rob.james@pillsburylaw.com Ms. Oladetimi may be contacted at shade.oladetimi@pillsburylaw.com Read the court decision
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Florida Courts Inundated by Wave of New Lawsuits as Sweeping Tort Reform Appears Imminent

April 03, 2023 — John A. Rine - Lewis Brisbois
Tampa, Fla. (March 22, 2023) – Plaintiffs’ attorneys throughout Florida are rushing to file lawsuits in anticipation of sweeping tort reform legislation. It has been reported that some plaintiffs’ firms in the Sunshine State have filed hundreds – and in some cases thousands – of new lawsuits this week ahead of the potential enactment of the bill. It has also been reported that this record number of new suits being filed is causing difficulty and failures in some court computer systems. These plaintiffs’ attorneys are panicked by HB 837. This bill will potentially provide the most radical tort reform the state has seen in several decades. The specific revisions to civil litigation are dramatic. For instance, the statute of limitations would be cut in half, from four years to two years. Additionally, insurance carriers would be immune from claims of bad faith if they tender the limits within 90 days of notice of a claim. Carriers will also enjoy numerous new protections from bad faith litigation even where there is no tender in the first 90 days. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of John A. Rine, Lewis Brisbois
Mr. Rine may be contacted at John.Rine@lewisbrisbois.com

California insured’s duty to cooperate and insurer’s right to select defense counsel

April 14, 2011 — CDCoverage.com

In Travelers Property Casualty Co. v. Centex Homes, No. C 10-02757 (N.D. Cal. April 1, 2011), general contractor Centex was sued by homeowners for construction defects. Centex tendered its defense to Travelers as an additional insured under policies issued by Travelers to two Centex subcontractors. Travelers agreed to defend Centex under a reservation of rights and selected defense counsel to defend Centex. Centex refused to accept the defense, asserting that it was entitled to select defense counsel. Travelers filed suit against Centex seeking a declaratory judgment that Centex had breached the duty to cooperate condition in the Travelers’ policy.

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Reprinted courtesy of CDCoverage.com

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That Boilerplate Language May Just Land You in Hot Water

December 17, 2015 — Kevin Brodehl – California Construction Law Blog
The following post originally appeared in my partnerKevin Brodehl‘s informative blog, Money and Dirt. If you’re involved in real estate investment, development and/or secured lending in California, it’s a must read. While Kevin’s post below discusses a case involving a real estate purchase agreement, it applies equally to construction contracts, perhaps even more so, since I can’t think of any other type of contract in which indemnity and integration clauses are as common, or as integral. Almost all real estate purchase and sale agreements contain provisions relating to integration and indemnity. In the “boilerplate” worldview, these provisions are standard, generic, and basically all the same — integration clauses prohibit extrinsic evidence that would contradict the terms of the agreement, and indemnity clauses force the seller to protect the buyer from third party claims arising after closing. But a recently published opinion by the California Court of Appeal (Fourth District, Division Three in Santa Ana) — Hot Rods, LLC v. Northrop Grunman Systems Corp. — clarifies that integration and indemnity clauses can have vastly different effects depending on how they are drafted. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Kevin Brodehl, California Construction Law Blog
Mr. Brodehl may be contacted at kbrodehl@wendel.com

Taking Service Network Planning to the Next Level

July 22, 2019 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
Cities and municipalities are basically systems for delivering services for the benefit of their citizens. An experimental project demonstrated how improving the flow of data between these services could save a lot of time and taxpayer money. Emilia Rönkkö is an architect who worked for the Finnish city of Kuopio. Besides that, she is a Docent of Urban Planning at the University of Oulu. “In Kuopio, my job included doing architectural programming for public investments and service network reviews. More specifically, surveys about Growth and Learning Services that were focused on daycares and schools,” Rönkkö explains. “Typically, a service network review with manual data collection procedures takes place every three to five years. I and other functionaries involved in the process wondered if there might be a better, more efficient way to do the reviews.” Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

Duty to Defend Sorted Between Two Insurers Based Upon Lease and Policies

November 02, 2017 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
Two insurers disagreed on which was responsible for defense costs in the underlying personal injury suit against the insured. Nautilus Ins. Co. v. Westfield Ins. Co., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158480 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 27, 2017). Knerr Group, Inc. lease property to Podcon, Inc. pursuant to a written lease. A man named Anthony Postell suffered an injury in an accident on the premises during the term of the lease. Postell filed a personal injury action against Knerr and Podcon, among others. Nautilus provided a defense to Knerr in the Postell case pursuant to a policy Nautilus issued to Knerr. Podcon was insured by Westfield. 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

“For What It’s Worth”

October 21, 2024 — Daniel Lund III - Lexology
The legal doctrine of quantum meruit is essentially referring to recovering “for what it’s worth,” incorporating the Latin phrase for “as much as one has deserved.” Quantum meruit recovery occurs when there is no contract between parties for the particular item for which recovery is sought. Hence, quantum meruit recovery is generally a means of last resort to endeavor to make oneself whole. So, it was for a subcontractor seeking nearly $14,000,000 for work it performed on a construction project in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The subcontractor sued on contract as well as quantum meruit/unjust enrichment. The court initially dismissed the quantum meruit/unjust enrichment claims – because there was a contract claim – whereupon the contract claim was dismissed on summary judgment: the subcontractor failed to timely submit change proposals and, consequently, “lost contract remedies available to recover amounts it sought in the change proposals.” 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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