SEATTLE WASHINGTON BUILDING EXPERT
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Manhattan Developer Wants Claims Dismissed in Breach of Contract Suit

August 27, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
The Real Deal reported that Savannah, the developer of the condo conversion at 141 Fifth Avenue, “has filed to dismiss a number of claims in a $7.5 million breach of contract lawsuit by the property’s board of managers, while alleging professional negligence against several of its own contractors.” Savanah’s lawyers stated, according to The Real Deal, that whether or not construction defects exist, their client isn’t responsible: “However to the extent that any of the alleged defects exist at the building, sponsor cannot be held liable for the existence of such defects.” Read the court decision
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High Court Could Alter Point-Source Discharge Definition in Taking Clean-Water Case

March 18, 2019 — Mary B. Powers - Engineering News-Record
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to review lower court rulings on whether a permit is required under the federal Clean Water Act when pollutants originate from a point source but are carried to navigable waters by a non-point source such as groundwater could set some new parameters for compliance, observers say. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Mary B. Powers, ENR
ENR may be contacted at ENR.com@bnpmedia.com

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Sometimes, Being too Cute with Pleading Allegations is Unnecessary

June 06, 2018 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
There are times where being too darn cute with your pleading allegations is unnecessary and does not work. But, the point is really that the cuteness is unnecessary. In a Miller Act payment bond dispute in Boneso Brothers Construction, Inc. v. Sauer, Inc., 2018 WL 2387833 (N.D.Cal. 2018), a claimant asserted claims against a Miller Act payment bond surety for breach of the payment bond, breach of a subcontract, open account, and account stated. The question is why would the claimant sue the payment bond surety for breach of subcontract (when the subcontract was not with the surety), and open account and account stated. I have no clue, other than such claims appeared quite unnecessary when the claimant asserted an action on the Miller Act payment bond (which is what the surety is liable under — actions under the statutory payment bond). Such claims were dismissed. And, they should have been. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Florida Construction Legal Updates
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dadelstein@gmail.com

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MBS’s $500 Billion Desert Dream Just Keeps Getting Weirder

August 29, 2022 — Vivian Nereim - Bloomberg
One day last September, a curious email arrived in Chris Hables Gray’s inbox. An author and self-described anarchist, feminist, and revolutionary, Gray fits right into Santa Cruz, Calif., where he lives. He’s written extensively about genetic engineering and the inevitable rise of cyborgs, attending protests in between for causes such as Black Lives Matter. While Gray had taken some consulting gigs over the years, he’d never received an offer like this one. The first shock was the money: significantly more than he’d earned from all but one of his books. The second was the task: researching the aesthetics of seminal works of science fiction such as Blade Runner. The biggest surprise, however, was the ultimate client: Mohammed bin Salman, the 36-year-old crown prince of Saudi Arabia. MBS, as he’s known abroad, was in the early stages of one of the largest and most difficult construction projects in history, which involves turning an expanse of desert the size of Belgium into a high-tech city-region called Neom. Starting with a budget of $500 billion, MBS bills Neom as a showpiece that will transform Saudi Arabia’s economy and serve as a testbed for technologies that could revolutionize daily life. And as Gray’s proposed assignment suggested, the crown prince’s vision bears little resemblance to the cities of today. Intrigued, Gray took the job. “If I can be honest with how I see the world, I’ll pretty much put my work out to anyone,” he says. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Vivian Nereim, Bloomberg

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US Supreme Court Backs Panama Canal Owner in Dispute with Builders

May 20, 2024 — C.J. Schexnayder - Engineering News-Record
A long-running legal battle over the concrete used in construction of the Panama Canal's third lane expansion locks has reached its end in U.S. courts—with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 26 upholding a $271.8-million award to the project owner, the Panama Canal Authority, against its contractor group, Grupo Unidos por el Canal. Reprinted courtesy of C.J. Schexnayder, Engineering News-Record Mr. Schexnayder may be contacted at schexnayderc@enr.com Read the full story... Read the court decision
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Insurer Unable to Declare its Coverage Excess In Construction Defect Case

January 06, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a summary judgment in the case of American Family Mutual Insurance Co. v. National Fire & Marine Insurance Co. Several other insurance companies were party to this case. In the earlier case, the US District Court of Appeals for Arizona had granted a summary judgment to Ohio Casualty Group and National Fire & Marine Insurance Company. At the heart of it, is a dispute over construction defect coverage.

The general contractor for Astragal Luxury Villas, GFTDC, contracted with American Family to provide it with a commercial liability policy. Coverage was issued to various subcontractors by Ohio Casualty and National Fire. These policies included blanket additional insured endorsements that provided coverage to GFTDC. The subcontractor policies had provisions making their coverage excess over other policies available to GFTDC.

The need for insurance was triggered when the Astragal Condominium Unit Owners Association filed a construction defect claim in the Arizona Superior Court. CFTDC filed a third-party claim against several subcontractors. The case was settled with American Family paying the settlement, after which it filed seeking reimbursement from the subcontractor’s insurers. The court instead granted summary judgment in favor of Ohio Casualty and National Fire.

American Family appealed to the Ninth Circuit for a review of the summary judgment, arguing that the “other insurance” clauses were “mutually repugnant and unenforceable.” The Ninth Circuit cited a case from the Arizona Court of Appeals that held that “where two policies cover the same occurrence and both contain ‘other insurance’ clauses, the excess insurance provisions are mutually repugnant and must be disregarded. Each insurer is then liable for a pro rate share of the settlement or judgment.”

The court noted that unlike other “other insurance” cases, the American Family policy “states that it provides primary CGL coverage for CFTDC and is rendered excess only if there is ‘any other primary insurance’ available to GFTDC as an additional insured.” They note that “the American Family policy purports to convert from primary to excess coverage only if CFTDC has access to other primary insurance as an additional insured.”

In comparison, the court noted that “the ‘other insurance’ language in Ohio Casualty’s additional insured endorsement cannot reasonably be read to contradict, or otherwise be inconsistent with, the ‘other primary insurance’ provision in the American Family policy.” They find other reasons why National Fire’s coverage did not supersede American Family’s. In this case, the policy is “written explicitly to apply in excess.”

Finally, the Astragal settlement did not exhaust American Family’s coverage, so they were obligated to pay out the full amount. The court upheld the summary dismissal of American Family’s claims.

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New York Appellate Court Affirms 1966 Insurance Policy Continues to Cover WTC Asbestos Claims

January 02, 2019 — Michael S. Levine & Joshua S. Paster - Hunton Andrews Kurth
In a prior post, we discussed a New York trial-court decision that found an insurance policy issued in 1966, to insure the construction of the World Trade Center, continues to cover modern-day asbestos claims, with each claim constituting an individual occurrence. Last week, in American Home Assurance Co. v. The Port Authority of N.Y. and N.J., 7628-7628A (1st Dep’t Nov. 15, 2018), an intermediate appellate court affirmed that decision, agreeing that coverage is triggered for claims tied to alleged asbestos exposure at the WTC site in the 1960s and ’70s. Reprinted courtesy of Michael S. Levine, Hunton Andrews Kurth and Joshua S. Paster, Hunton Andrews Kurth Mr. Levine may be contacted at mlevine@HuntonAK.com Mr. Paster may be contacted at jpaster@HuntonAK.com Read the court decision
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Preparing For the Worst with Smart Books & Records

November 07, 2012 — CDJ STAFF
Contractors are often too caught up in keeping the wheel of business churning to recognize deficiencies in how their records are managed. Working hard and working often tend to leave little time for consideration of your documents. But all too often I see the unthinkable, a contractor gets into trouble and has to call on its surety for help. At that point, you might finally get your first dose of reality about your records – and it can cost you. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Douglas Reiser of Reiser Legal LLC.
Mr. Reiser can be contacted at info@reiserlegal.com

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