Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Confidence Among U.S. Homebuilders Little Changed in January

January 28, 2015 — Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- Confidence among U.S. homebuilders hovered in January close to a nine-year high, indicating the residential real estate market is poised to expand this year. While the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment gauge fell to 57 this month from 58 in December, readings greater than 50 mean more respondents report good market conditions, according to figures issued from the Washington-based group Tuesday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for 58. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Bloomberg News

Surprising Dismissal of False Claims Act Case Based on Appointments Clause - What Does It Mean?

October 15, 2024 — Steven H. Lee - Lewis Brisbois Newsroom
Atlanta, Ga. (October 1, 2024) - In a surprising turn of events, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit brought by relator Clarissa Zafirov against Florida Medical Associates, LLC, and other defendants. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled that the FCA’s qui tam provisions, which allow private individuals to bring lawsuits on behalf of the government, violate the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. This decision follows another unexpected ruling by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida, where the court similarly dismissed an indictment against former President Donald Trump based on the same constitutional clause. At the heart of these rulings is the argument that FCA relators - who decide whom to sue, which legal theories to pursue, and how to proceed - exercise significant executive authority. Because they are not appointed by the President, a department head, or a court, the judges concluded that these relators hold their positions unconstitutionally. As a result, Judge Mizelle dismissed the case entirely. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Steven H. Lee, Lewis Brisbois
Mr. Lee may be contacted at Steven.Lee@lewisbrisbois.com

Workplace Safety–the Unpreventable Employee Misconduct Defense

October 02, 2015 — Craig Martin – Construction Contractor Advisor
I just attended an Associated Builders and Contractors meeting during which Lueder Construction discussed a fatality on one of its worksite. OSHA fully investigated the incident and did not issue a single citation. This is a testament to the safety plan and training Lueder had in place well before this incident. One defense to an OSHA citation is unpreventable employee misconduct. However, proving this defense requires substantial planning, well before an incident or investigation. Unpreventable Employee Misconduct Defense OSHA requires that an employer do everything reasonably within its power to ensure that its personnel do not violate safety standards. But if an employer lives up to that billing and an employee nonetheless fails to use proper equipment or otherwise ignores firmly established safety measures, it seems unfair to hold the employer liable. To address this dilemma, both the Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission and courts have recognized the availability of the unforeseeable employee misconduct defense. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Craig Martin, Lamson, Dugan and Murray, LLP
Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin@ldmlaw.com

Land a Cause of Home Building Shortage?

June 17, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Diana Olick of CNBC reported that builders are not keeping up with the housing demand due to a lack of supply of developed lots as well as the increasing price of available land. "You have to find the land, you've got to be able to buy it and you've got to persuade someone to let you develop it. The one you hear the most about is the last one," Paul Emrath, vice president of survey and housing policy research at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), told CNBC. Olick wrote that “[l]and prices have actually surpassed their peak values in many markets where builders are particularly active, especially in Texas.” Read the court decision
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Victoria Kajo Named One of KNOW Women's 100 Women to KNOW in America for 2024

May 13, 2024 — Lewis Brisbois Newsroom
Los Angeles, Calif. (April 30, 2024) – Los Angeles Partner Victoria Kajo has been named to global media company KNOW Women's 2024 100 Women to KNOW in America list, which honors the top 100 female leaders across North America. The honorees were recognized at the annual KNOW Women Summit, held from April 21-23 at The Palomar Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. The annual 100 Women to KNOW in America award, presented by JPMorgan Chase, recognizes women entrepreneurs, executives, creatives, and philanthropists who "exemplify what it means to be high achieving and ambitious on the next level and who continue to pour into their communities as they do so," according to KNOW Women. Ms. Kajo was selected as one of this year's honorees following a nomination and interview process. Ms. Kajo is a member of Lewis Brisbois' Professional Liability Practice. She has extensive experience with professional liability litigation, having defended lawyers, design professionals and real estate professionals against claims of alleged negligent acts and omissions in the performance of their professional services. Ms. Kajo also has broad experience in general civil litigation matters involving errors and omissions, real estate, wrongful foreclosures, labor and employment law, civil rights, fraud, personal injury, breach of contract and unlawful detainer matters, amongst others. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Lewis Brisbois

Appetite for Deconstruction

July 02, 2024 — Patrick Sisson - Bloomberg
The death of 206 College Avenue was slow and painstaking. Over several days in January 2022, dozens of bundled-up volunteers swarmed over the three-story property, a tired wooden boarding house built in the early 1900s in Ithaca, New York. Long used as rental apartments for Cornell University students, the 13-bedroom house was set to be demolished, along with several neighboring structures of the same vintage, to make room for a new multi-use complex. But while those buildings were quickly reduced to rubble by trackhoes, the house at 206 was deconstructed, piece by piece, so that its elements could be used again. The Catherine Commons Deconstruction Project, an effort by Cornell’s Circular Construction Lab, was a large-scale pilot designed to show how building waste can be kept out of landfills. As volunteers pulled nails out of fir, oak, and walnut boards and hauled lumber off to be sorted and redistributed, a team of eight workers with heavy machinery began meticulously sawing, slicing and removing 8-by-18-foot panels of the old building. These were trucked off to a warehouse, where they’d be taken apart and recycled. The labor that went into this process was substantially more than a typical demolition. But it avoided the societal penalties left behind at nearly every building and demo site across the US. The sheer volume of waste generated by knocking down, adding to or renovating buildings in the US is stunning: 600 million tons of construction demolition waste annually, according to the most recent EPA estimate from 2018. Roughly 75% gets ground up into aggregate and fill, and only a small share is recycled and reused, necessitating production of new material for the next project. For scale, municipal solid waste only accounts for 300 million tons every year. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Patrick Sisson, Bloomberg

#1 CDJ Topic: McMillin Albany LLC v Superior Court of California

December 30, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Stephen A. Sunseria of Gatzke Dillon & Balance LLP discussed how the Fifth Appellate District court “issued a blistering criticism of the Fourth Appellate District’s prior opinion in Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Brookfield Crystal Cove LLC (2013) 219 Ca.App.4th 98, which severely limited the reach of the Act to actions not involving property damage and allowing property damage claims to proceed freely under common law without any constraints posed by the Act.” Sunseri stated that “McMillin is a great victory for homebuilders, but battle lines are now clearly drawn between the two appellate districts.” Read the full story... In another article regarding the McMillin Albany LLC case, Garret Murai of Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLP posted an article on his California Construction Law Blog that went over the legal debate of California’s Right to Repair Act including Liberty Mutual, Burch v. Superior Court, and KB Home Greater Los Angeles, Inc. v. Superior Court and concluded with a discussion of the McMillin Albany case. Murai predicted, rightly it turned out, that the case would see a “final round before the California Supreme Court.” Read the full story... In their December 2, 2015 article, authors Richard H. Glucksman, Glenn T. Barger, Jon A. Turigliatto, and David A. Napper of Chapman Glucksman Dean Roeb & Barger reported that the California Supreme Court granted the petition for review of the McMillin Albany decision: “The holdings in Liberty Mutual and McMillin Albany present a conflict of authority that the California Supreme Court has appropriately deemed worthy of review. The parties will now be permitted to file briefs on the merits and amicus briefs will certainly be submitted by the defense and plaintiff bars.” Read the full story... Read the court decision
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BWB&O ranks as a 2025 Best Law Firm by Best Lawyers®

December 10, 2024 — Dolores Montoya - Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP
Bremer Whyte Brown & O’Meara, LLP is honored to announce the firm has been recognized for its fifth consecutive year in the 2025 edition of Best Law Firms® and is ranked by Best Lawyers® regionally in three practice areas. To read the publication, please click here. Metropolitan Tier 1 Las Vegas: Litigation – Construction Orange County: Litigation – Construction Metropolitan Tier 2 Orange County: Family Law San Diego: Litigation – Real Estate Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Dolores Montoya, Bremer Whyte Brown & O'Meara LLP

FAIRFIELD CONNECTICUT BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES