Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Mississippi Floods Prompt New Look at Controversial Dam Project

March 16, 2020 — Autumn Cafiero Giusti - Engineering News-Record
Flooding from the Pearl River in Mississippi has created a renewed sense of urgency for regional flood prevention efforts, with officials set to decide in six months whether to approve a controversial flood control plan, says an attorney for the region’s flood control district. Autumn Cafiero Giusti, Engineering News-Record ENR may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Aging-in-Place Features Becoming Essential for Many Home Buyers

March 12, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
With the rising number of Americans over the age of sixty-five, there is an “upswing” in demand of “aging-in-place home features,” according to Big Builder. Big Builder also noted seven accessible features that homebuyers identified when surveyed by The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). A couple of the features listed were “doorways at least three feet wide” and “non-slip floors.” The survey results were reported in What Home Buyers Really Want, released in May 2013 by the NAHB. Read the court decision
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Los Angeles Construction Sites May Be on Fault Lines

December 30, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
California law prohibits building near or on top of earthquake fault lines, but Los Angeles County building officials may have used outdated information that misreported the location of certain faults. The Los Angeles Times reports that after their earlier articles on fault lines, the officials have started using newer maps. According to the older maps, an apartment building under construction on Brockton Avenue in Los Angeles is 1.9 miles away from the Santa Monica fault. But a more recent map, created by the state in 2010, shows that the fault line could potentially be right under the building site. The builders of another apartment building potentially located on the Santa Monica fault said that the city did not ask for a fault investigation. The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety said that there was no official zone designation for the Santa Monica fault, and so did not require seismic studies. Read the court decision
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Caution to GCs! An Exception to Privette Can Leave You Open to Liability

February 01, 2023 — Nicole Whyte - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
In a recent important decision, Brown v. Beach House Design & Development the Court of Appeal addressed an issue that frequently arises under the Privette doctrine—the extent to which a general contractor can be held liable for injuries to a subcontractor’s employee. The injuries in Brown arose when a window casing subcontractor’s employee fell from a scaffold erected by a plastering subcontractor at a construction site. According to evidence offered by the plaintiff in opposition to a motion for summary judgment filed by the general contractor, the scaffold was not properly secured to the building where the work was being performed. As a result the scaffold was defective and failed, causing the injuries. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Nicole Whyte, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Ms. Whyte may be contacted at nwhyte@bremerwhyte.com

Patent or Latent: An Important Question in Construction Defects

October 25, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
Pieter M. O’Leary, writing for the site AVVO offers the advice that whether a construction defect is patent or latent could influence whether or not it’s covered in a construction defect claim. He notes that a “patent defect” is “a construction defect that is ‘readily observable or evident,’” while a “latent defect” is “a construction defect that is present but not readily detectable even with reasonable care.” While this may sound like a simple distinction, he notes that “distinguishing between the two can often be difficult and sometimes highly contested by the various parties in a lawsuit.” The first question is “whether the average consumer, during the course of a reasonable inspection, would discover the defect.” The question arises because “if a defect is hidden and not detectable (latent defect), a longer time period exists for the claimant to file a claim.” Read the court decision
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SCOTUS to Weigh Landowners' Damage Claim Against Texas DOT

November 13, 2023 — Mary B. Powers - Engineering News-Record
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case this term that could affect whether states must pay compensation to landowners whose property was damaged by public project execution. Payments also could extend to state owned utilities and others. Reprinted courtesy of Mary B. Powers, Engineering News-Record ENR may be contacted at enr@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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This Company Wants to Cut Emissions to Zero in the Dirty Cement Business

November 12, 2019 — Nick Rigillo - Bloomberg
Europe’s biggest maker of cement plants is looking for help to clean up one of the world’s dirtiest industries. FLSmidth A/S, which is based in climate-friendly Denmark, wants to reduce emissions in cement production to zero by 2030. The company says it can achieve 70% of that target by leveraging existing technologies, for instance by blending clinker with alternative materials. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Nick Rigillo, Bloomberg

New Safety Requirements added for Keystone Pipeline

June 11, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
After learning about construction defects on the “southern leg of the Canada-to-Texas project,” safety regulators have added two additional conditions “on construction of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline,” according to Claims Journal. The defects, which have been fixed, included “high rates of bad welds, dented pipe and damaged pipeline coating.” The first condition requires “TransCanada to hire a third-party contractor chosen by the pipeline safety agency to monitor the construction” and report to the U.S. government, while the second condition requires “TransCanada to adopt a quality management program.” Both conditions were “buried near the end of the 26 appendices in a voluminous environmental impact statement on Keystone XL released by the State Department on Jan. 31.” Read the court decision
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FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES