SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Parking Garage Collapse May Be Due to Construction Defect

November 07, 2012 — CDJ STAFF
A parking garage under construction at the Doral campus of Miami Dade College collapsed on October 9. Experts state that the collapse may have been due to errors in the construction process, either in the fabrication of the pre-cast components or in their assembly. The Bradenton Herald quotes Mark Santos, a structural engineer, who “would look at erection procedures – that’s probably the one question to ask first.” During the failure, floors separated from the south wall of the structure. The contractor responsible for the garage, Ajax Building Corp, said there was “no indication of any potential cause.” Read the court decision
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Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Calls for CFPB Investigation into Tenant Screening Businesses

December 13, 2021 — Brian H. Montgomery - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, has written to newly confirmed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Rohit Chopra, asking him to review companies in the tenant screening industry for possible Fair Credit Reporting Act violations and other violations of U.S. laws. The CFPB, for its part, has already published a bulletin alerting Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) and other furnishers of consumer information that, as federal, state and local pandemic-related housing protections expire, the Bureau will be giving greater enforcement focus to these businesses’ compliance with accuracy and dispute obligations under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Regulation V. While it is still unclear whether Director Chopra will direct the Bureau to investigate specific businesses flagged by Chairman Brown, the tenant screening industry will likely face increased scrutiny in the coming months, which may impact their service offerings and cause interruptions for landlords relying on these businesses and services. There are approximately 2,000 tenant screening companies across the United States. These companies are used by landlords to better identify and perform background checks on prospective tenants. These reports typically provide a prospective tenant’s rental and eviction histories, credit score, debt-to-income ratio, and outstanding credit obligations, among other financial metrics. The reports also usually include a criminal background check, including searches of sex offender registries and other public records searches. Many tenant screening companies then use this information to provide an estimate of the risk that each tenant presents, calculated through proprietary algorithmic formulas. These reports are usually available to landlords at a cost ranging from approximately $5 to $55 per report, usually passed through to the prospective tenant through application fees. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Brian H. Montgomery, Pillsbury
Mr. Montgomery may be contacted at brian.montgomery@pillsburylaw.com

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Uneven Code Enforcement Seen in Earthquake-Damaged Buildings in Turkey

February 14, 2023 — Jeff Rubenstone & Neelam Matthews - Engineering News-Record
The aftermath of the Feb. 6 earthquakes and aftershocks in central Turkey has begun to shift from immediate search-and-rescue efforts to a grim cataloguing of the extent of the destruction, with emergency response teams in Turkey and Syria beginning the work of evaluating the condition of thousands of buildings and infrastructure impacted by the temblors. Reprinted courtesy of Jeff Rubenstone, Engineering News-Record and Neelam Matthews, Engineering News-Record Mr. Rubenstone may be contacted at rubenstonej@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Contractors with Ties to Trustees Reaped Benefits from LA Community College Modernization Program

March 03, 2011 — Gale Holland, Michael Finnegan and Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times

In the latest installment of the “Billions To Spend” series of investigative reports focused on construction defects, management, and cost issues relevant to LACC’s Community College Modernization Projects, the LA Times examines the costs associated with the various layers of construction management and benefits that accrued to contractors with ties to LACC trustees.



The reporting by the Times is seemingly critical of the project’s utilization of “body shops” an industry term for companies that function as employers of record. The article segment published today cites a number of circumstances wherein their utilization appears to have escalated costs substantially.



“To gauge the cost of the staffing system, The Times reviewed thousands of pages of financial records from April 2007, when URS began managing the program, to July 2010. Reporters identified two dozen contractors serving as conduits for pay and benefits for employees they did not supervise.



At least 230 people were employed in this manner, at a total cost of about $40 million, the records show.



Approximately $18 million of the total was paid to the employees, according to the Times analysis. The remaining $22 million went to profit and overhead for contractors, the records indicate.



For employees on its own payroll, the district says that medical and other benefits increase compensation costs 40% above base salaries. So if the district had employed its construction staff directly, the total cost for the period studied would have been $25 million instead of $40 million, a savings of $15 million, The Times calculated.”



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Bridges Crumble as Muni Rates at Least Since ’60s Ignored

June 26, 2014 — William Selway and Brian Chappatta – Bloomberg
No state is needier than West Virginia when it comes to fixing crumbling highways, airports and water works, with annual repair needs of $1,035 per resident that’s three times the national average. Yet even with borrowing costs hovering close to four-decade lows, lawmakers rejected a January proposal to sell $1 billion of bonds to repair roads that run through the Appalachian Mountains. Budget cuts were a more immediate concern, they said. Across the U.S., localities are refraining from raising new funds in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression left them with unprecedented deficits. Rather than take advantage of Federal Reserve (FDTR) policy that’s held benchmark interest rates at historic lows since December 2008, they’re repaying obligations by the most on record. Mr. Selway may be contacted at wselway@bloomberg.net; Mr. Chappatta may be contacted at bchappatta1@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of William Selway and Brian Chappatta, Bloomberg

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Duty to Defend Triggered by Damage to Other Non-Defective Property

February 20, 2023 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The court found the insurer must defend because there was a possibility of damage to property due to work not performed by the insured. B&W Paving & Landscape, LLC v. Employers Mut. Cas. Co., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 225783 (D. Conn. Dec. 15, 2022). In 2010, Whiting Turner Contracting Company (WT) contracted with United Illuminating Company (UI) to act as general contractor for the construction of UI's new central facility. WT subcontracted with Cherry Hill Construction, Inc. (Cherry Hill) for work underneath the parking lot and driveways, including installing base and sub base materials. WT also subcontracted with B&W Paving and Landscape, LLC (B&W) for the asphalt paving. In 2018, UI sued WT for defective and incomplete work. WT then filed a third-party compact against its subcontractors, including B&W. WT sued for contribution for any liability it may have to UI for the paving 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

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Car Crashes Through Restaurant Window. Result: Lesson in the History of Additional Insured Coverage

December 29, 2020 — Randy J. Maniloff - White and Williams LLP
Back in the day, additional insureds were oftentimes afforded coverage for liability “arising out of” the named insured’s work for the additional insured. When confronted with such language, courts often concluded that it dictated “but for” causation. In other words, but for the named insured doing the work for the additional insured, the additional insured would not be in the liability-facing situation that it is in. The result in some cases: additional insureds were entitled to coverage for their sole negligence. Decisions reaching such a conclusion were generally not well-received by insurers. This was especially so when you consider that the premium received by insurers, for the AI coverage, may not have been enough to buy a package of Twizzlers. Insurer frustration with such decisions -- which insurers did not believe expressed the intent of additional insured coverage -- led ISO to make revisions to additional insured forms in 2004 (later revisions followed). At the heart of these revisions was an attempt to require fault on the part of the named insured before coverage could be afforded to the additional insured. (This is a very brief and simple history of this complex issue.) Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Randy J. Maniloff, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Maniloff may be contacted at maniloffr@whiteandwilliams.com

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Texas City Pulls Plug on Fossil Fuels With Shift to Solar

March 19, 2015 — Christopher Martin – Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- A city in the heart of the oil state of Texas is set to become one of the first communities in the U.S. to wean its residents off fossil fuels. The municipal utility in Georgetown, with about 50,000 residents, will get all of its power from renewable resources when SunEdison Inc. completes 150 megawatts of solar farms in West Texas next year. The change was announced Wednesday. It will be the first city to completely embrace clean power in the state, which is the biggest U.S. producer and user of natural gas. More will follow as municipalities seek to insulate themselves from unpredictable prices for fossil fuels, said Paul Gaynor, SunEdison’s executive vice president of North America. Burlington, Vermont, made a similar move with its purchase of a hydroelectric plant last year. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Christopher Martin, Bloomberg
Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin11@bloomberg.net

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