Fairfield Connecticut Building Expert Directory

Court Holds That Insurance Producer Cannot Be Liable for Denial of COVID-19 Business Interruption Claim

November 23, 2020 — Christopher P. Leise & Marc L. Penchansky - White and Williams LLP
After an insurance carrier denied a lawyer and her law firm’s claim for lost business income due to the COVID-19-related shutdown, she sued both her carrier and the insurance producer that procured the policy. See Wilson v. Hartford Casualty Company, No. 20-3384 (E.D.Pa. Sep. 30, 2020). In one of the first cases to consider producer liability in COVID-19 cases, Judge Eduardo Robreno dismissed the lawsuit against the producer and the carrier. USI procured the Policy from Hartford for Rhonda Hill Wilson and her law firm. The Policy included coverage for lost business income and extra expense caused by direct physical loss of, or damage to property. Similarly, the Policy covered lost business income if a nearby property experienced a direct physical loss that caused a civil authority to issue an order that prohibited access to the law firm’s property. The Policy also included a virus exclusion “for loss or damage caused directly or indirectly by . . . [p]resence, growth, proliferation, spread or any activity of . . . virus.” Judge Robreno did not decide whether the Policy afforded any coverage to Wilson and her law firm for their COVID-19 losses. Rather, he found that even if they could, the virus exclusion unambiguously barred any coverage they could possibly claim. For that reason, Judge Robreno dismissed the claims against Hartford. Reprinted courtesy of Christopher P. Leise, White and Williams LLP and Marc L. Penchansky, White and Williams LLP Mr. Leise may be contacted at leisec@whiteandwilliams.com Mr. Penchansky may be contacted at penchanskym@whiteandwilliams.com Read the court decision
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Construction Contracts Fall in Denver

October 02, 2013 — CDJ STAFF
After nearly a year of growth, residential construction contracts dropped 22% in the Denver area in August. Residential construction contracts are still above what they were before August 2012, but the gains since then have been wiped out. The value of contracts in August 2012 was $219.8 million, and this this August they have fallen to $171.7 million. Commercial construction also saw a reduction, however, there the fall was only 7%, dropping from $1.54 billion to $1.43 billion. Read the court decision
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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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Ivanhoe Cambridge Plans Toronto Office Towers, Terminal

October 01, 2014 — Scott Deveau and Katia Dmitrieva – Bloomberg
Ivanhoe Cambridge, the real estate arm of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, plans to build a C$2-billion ($1.8 billion) officer tower and bus terminal complex in Toronto’s financial district in partnership with regional transport authority Metrolinx. Construction is expected to begin as early as spring 2015, with a new GO bus terminal set to open three years later, the parties said in a joint statement. “We want this project to be iconic for Toronto through inspired design and intelligent integration of public transit with green spaces,” Daniel Fournier, chief executive officer of Montreal-based Ivanhoe Cambridge, said in the statement. The total cost of the complex is expected to be C$2 billion, Fournier said at a press conference in Toronto. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Scott Deveau and Katia Dmitrieva, Bloomberg
Mr. Deveau may be contacted at sdeveau2@bloomberg.net

Is Your Design Professional Construction Contract too Friendly? (Law Note)

July 09, 2014 — Melissa Dewey Brumback – Construction Law North Carolina
My husband often travels the back roads between Chapel Hill and Fuquay Varina to visit friends. En route (a circuitous route that goes past Sharon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, among other places), he passes by the “Friendly Grocery.” [Sign] No *Loitering*Littering*Alcoholic Beverages on Premises*Bike*Skateboard* *10 minutes Parking Limit*Towing Enforced* I’m not sure which is the “friendly” part of that sign. In fact, the sign seems to be the antithesis of friendly. What does this have to do with your construction contracts? Sometimes, in an effort to please the client and/or secure the project, architects and engineers have the habit of being too friendly in their contract language. That is, you make promises or proposals that may promise too much of a good thing for the client. This can cause big problems. Bigger than being towed away from a rural grocery store in the middle of nowhere. You could be putting your insurance coverage at risk. Have you ever promised to use “best efforts” in your design or plans? Promised to design to a specific LEED standard? Guaranteed 100% satisfaction? You might be putting your errors & omission coverage at issue. By warrantying or guaranteeing something, you are assuming a level of liability well beyond the standard of care required by law. By law, you only need to conform to the standard of care, and your insurance will only provide coverage up to that standard of care. In other words, if you make guarantees or promise “best efforts,” you are contracting to something that will *not* be insured. If something goes wrong, you will be without the benefit of your professional liability coverage. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Melissa Dewey Brumback, Construction Law in North Carolina
Ms. Brumback may be contacted at mbrumback@rl-law.com

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

“Bee” Careful: Unique Considerations When Negotiating a Bee Storage Lease Agreement

March 27, 2019 — Colton Addy - Snell & Wilmer Real Estate Litigation Blog
As demand for commercial bees used to pollinate crops (such as almond trees) has grown, so has the demand for facilities to store bees. Entering a lease agreement for the storage of live bees presents some unique issues the parties need to consider when negotiating the lease agreement. Don’t Bee Short-Sighted: Bees are often transported to different areas depending on the time of year, which means bees are not stored in the same facility all year. The lease agreement will often only provide for the storage of bees during the season when the bees are used for pollination in that particular area, but that does not mean the parties must limit the term of the lease agreement to a single season. The parties may consider entering into a lease agreement for multiple years that only applies during the pollination season each year. Bee Mindful of the Rent: Whereas the parties usually base rent in a typical commercial lease agreement off of the square footage of space the tenant uses in the premises, it often makes more sense for both parties negotiating a lease for the storage of bees to base the rent on the number of beehives or bee colony boxes stored at the facility. Basing the rent on the number of beehives or bee colony boxes provides the landlord with flexibility in storing the bees of multiple tenants in the same facility, and it can give the tenant flexibility with the number of bees it may need stored at the facility in any given season. With such a rental arrangement, a landlord should consider asking for a commitment from the tenant to deliver at least a certain number of beehives or colonies for storage, and the tenant should consider asking for a commitment from the landlord to reserve space in the facility for at least that same number of beehives or colonies as the tenant is giving a commitment for. Additionally, the parties will need to determine when rent will be paid. In a general commercial lease agreement, rent is usually paid monthly. With a bee storage lease agreement, however, a landlord may want to require the tenant to pay all of the rent for the season upon delivery of the bees, and the landlord may also want the tenant to pay a percentage of the rent to reserve space in the facility prior to delivery of the bees. This allows the landlord to get an early indication of what space in the facility it will have available in the facility for other tenants given the somewhat flexible rental arrangement of the parties. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Colton Addy, Snell & Wilmer
Mr. Addy may be contacted at caddy@swlaw.com

Jason Poore Receives 2018 Joseph H. Foster Young Lawyer Award

July 21, 2018 — Jason Poore - White and Williams LLP
Jason Poore, an associate in the General Litigation Group, recently received the 2018 Joseph H. Foster Young Lawyer Award during the Philadelphia Association of Defense Counsel’s annual meeting. The Joseph H. Foster Young Lawyer Award honors “a young lawyer who best exemplifies the qualities of professionalism and dedication as defense counsel in the practice of law and in the promotion of the highest ideals of justice in the community." Jason continues to make significant contributions to the local bar and community. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association Young Lawyers Division, he is the creator and Chair of the PBA's Youth Courts Committee. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Jason Poore, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Poore may be contacted at poorej@whiteandwilliams.com

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