Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

Diggerland, UK’s Construction Equipment Theme Park, is coming to the U.S.

January 22, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
This summer, Sahara Sam’s Oasis, located in West Berlin, New Jersey, will open Diggerland Adventure Park, a new 14-acre construction equipment themed amusement park, according to Equipment World. The United Kingdom currently has Diggerlands in four locations: “There, the parks use primarily JCB backhoes, excavators, and skid steers in a variety of ways.” Machines are used as rides, including “Spindizzy, in which an excavator takes a bucket full of people on a 360 degree spin.” Diggerland is currently owned by Allsafety Ltd. Read the court decision
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Texas Supreme Court Holds Stipulated Extrinsic Evidence May Be Considered in Determining Duty to Defend

May 10, 2022 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
Responding to certified questions from the Fifth Circuit, the Texas Supreme Court held that in limited circumstances, extrinsic evidence may be considered in determining the duty to defend. Monroe Guar. Ins. Co. v. Bitco Gen. Ins. Corp., 2022 Tex. LEXIS 148 (Tex. Feb. 11, 2022). The two insurers each provided CGL coverage to the insured, 5D Drilling & Pump Service, Inc., at different times. BIitco provided two consecutive one-year CGL policies covering October 2013 to October 2015. Monroe's CGL policy covered 5D from October 2015 to October 2016. 5D was sued by David Jones for breach of contract and negligence, seeking damage allegedly resulting from 5D's drilling operations on Jones's property. Jones contracted with 5D in the summer of 2014 to drill a 3600-foot irrigation well on his farmland. The complaint did not detail when 5D's purportedly negligent acts occurred or even when 5D began or stopped the work. 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

It’s Not What You Were Thinking!

December 10, 2024 — Daniel Lund III - Lexology
At least it is not what the lower court was thinking… but the same result for a general contractor seeking to have its comprehensive general liability insurer pay the GC’s defense related to claims for physical damage on a construction project. In reviewing the Massachusetts federal district court’s ruling in favor of the insurer, the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals posited: “The principal question is whether a general contractor’s CGL insurance policy covers damage to a non-defective part of the contractor’s project resulting from a subcontractor’s defective work on a different part of that project.” The district court had held under Massachusetts law that the insurer had no duty to defend because the lawsuit “did not allege ‘property damage’ caused by an ‘ occurrence,’ as required for coverage” under the policy (a defense that was urged by the insurer). The Court of Appeals affirmed, “albeit for different reasons.” 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

Risk Spotter Searches Internal Data Lakes For Loaded Words

October 11, 2017 — Tom Sawyer - Engineering News-Record
A tech start-up recently announced that it has been granted seven U.S. patents for a system that applies a “deep learning” algorithm to examine corporate e-mail databases and flag those with message fields or attachments containing language that might increase risk for a company involved in a federal discrimination lawsuit. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Tom Sawyer, ENR
Mr. Sawyer may be contacted at sawyert@enr.com

When a Request for Equitable Adjustment Should Be Treated as a Claim Under the Contract Disputes Act

August 29, 2022 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
In federal contracting, contractors are sometimes torn about submitting a request for equitable adjustment (known as an “REA” under 48 C.F.R. 252.243-7002) or submitting a formal claim under the Contract Disputes Act (41 U.S.C. s. 7103), the latter requiring a final decision by the contracting officer and starts the clock with respect to interest and preserving rights. It is also sometimes not easy for the contracting officer receiving an REA to determine whether the REA is actually a claim under the Contract Disputes Act requiring more immediate action. This recent take by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit hits the nail on the head:

We recognize that contracting officers will sometimes face the difficult challenge of determining whether a request for equitable adjustment is also a claim. Contractors must choose between submitting a claim—which starts the interest clock but requires the contracting officer to issue a final decision within 60 days—and submitting a mere request for equitable adjustment—which does not start the interest clock but gives the contractor more time to negotiate a settlement and possibly avoid hefty legal fees. The overlap between these two types of documents might create room for gamesmanship. For example, a contractor could submit a document that is a claim—starting the interest clock—but appears to be a mere request for equitable adjustment—causing the contracting officer to not issue a final decision within the 60-day deadline and allowing interest to accrue for months or years. But the government has tools to address this challenge: The contracting officer can communicate to the contractor that she is going to treat the document as a claim and issue a final decision within 60 days. Or the government can explicitly require the contractor to propose settlement terms and attempt to settle disputes before submitting a claim to the contracting officer for a final decision.

Zafer Construction Company v. U.S., 2022 WL 2793596, *5 (Fed.Cir. 2022).

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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

Revised Federal Rule Regarding Class-Wide Settlements

May 13, 2019 — Edward M. Koch & Michael Jervis - White and Williams LLP
The United States Supreme Court recently approved and adopted amendments to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 concerning class action practice as proposed by the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. The amended rule went into effect on December 1, 2018. The amendments do not affect the core of the rule – the criteria for obtaining class certification. Instead, the changes are more subtle adjustments that update and modernize procedures and processes for notification to class members and obtaining approval of class settlements. Nonetheless, although the amendments are not breathtaking, there are important changes. The first set of amendments apply to Rule 23(e), governing the process of settlement of a class action. First, the amendment makes explicit that the subsection applies not just to already certified classes, but also “a class proposed to be certified for purposes of settlement.” The changes also add some discretion of the court concerning when notice of a proposed settlement and settlement class should be provided. As part of the settlement approval process, the parties now are expressly required to give the court “information sufficient to enable it to determine whether to give notice of the proposal to the class.” The giving of notice is justified only if that information is sufficient to allow the court to determine it is likely to approve the proposed settlement and certify the class. Once notice is approved, the new rule recognizes modern developments by allowing that notice may be by “United States mail, electronic means, or other appropriate means.” The rule thus recognizes that in many cases traditional mail notice may still be best; in others e-mail notification might be the best way to reach class members. Reprinted courtesy of Edward M. Koch, White and Williams LLP and Michael Jervis, White and Williams LLP Mr. Koch may be contacted at koche@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Jervis may be contacted at jervism@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Defining Constructive Acceleration

March 22, 2021 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
When it comes to the definition of “constructive acceleration,” the case of Fraser Const. Co. v. U.S., 384 F.3d 1354 (Fed.Cir. 2004) is a cited case and contains an instructive definition, quoted below, for proving a constructive acceleration claim. In a nutshell, a constructive acceleration claim is when the contractor incurs added costs for trying to complete the contract on time when it should be provided extensions of time to perform based on excusable delay (i.e., delay not caused by the contractor). These added costs could be bringing in additional supervision to manage the work, adding manpower to perform the work, working overtime, working weekends, adding more shift work, stacking trades, etc. However, just because a contractor claims they have been constructively accelerated does not make it so. The contractor has to actually ask for an extension of time based on an excusable delay and the owner either denied the extension or unreasonably sat on the request for an extension of time; thus, the contractor incurred significant costs to accelerate in order to finish the project on time because it was deprived of a requested time extension for excusable delay. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

Precedent-Setting ‘Green’ Apartments in Kansas City

September 17, 2015 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
According to the Kansas City Star, the Missouri riverfront apartment development, Second and Delaware, is being constructed with “greener-than-green technology” and features the following: “Sixteen-inch-thick concrete walls. Rooftop gardens. A 90 percent reduction in energy use compared to current building codes.” The two buildings “will comprise the largest U.S. multifamily apartment project using Passive House Institute-certified construction, a system that’s more energy-efficient than the highest LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building standard.” Read the court decision
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SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES