West Virginia Couple Claim Defects in Manufactured Home
November 20, 2013 —
CDJ STAFFDouglas and Brenda Hess bought a manufactured home from Freedom Homes. Freedom Homes also hired workers to construct the basement and foundation, as well as install the home. Now the Hesses are claiming that the due to the installers, their home was damaged and that they cannot use it.
They claim that the defendants refuse to repair the damage, and also claim a variety of things including negligence, frustration of purpose, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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Are Construction Defect Laws Inhibiting the Development of Attached Ownership Housing in Colorado?
October 29, 2014 —
James M. Mulligan, Esq. – Snell & Wilmer, LLPThis article responds to the article published in the September 18, 2014 issue of the Construction Defect Journal. It provides a different perspective to this issue, based on the author's experience with these matters during the past decade of attention to this specific challenge.
During recent years, there has been much discussion about the lack of attached ownership housing construction in Colorado. The main culprit, according to several sources within the community, seems to be our state's construction defect laws.
Since 2001, there has been a periodic series of legislative fixes to our construction defect laws that saw the pendulum swing back and forth between the interests of the consuming public who purchase the homes and certain protections of the developers and homebuilders from excessive and unnecessary litigation. Some say that the current state of the law is more onerous than necessary on the developers and homebuilders and it is artificially inhibiting the development of multifamily ownership housing in a time of high demand and low supply.
A recent opinion article in the September 29th, 2014 issue of the Denver Post stated, in part:
"No one is suggesting that developers escape liability for construction defects or that homeowners be denied the right to sue. But under the state's current defect laws, the scales have tilted too far in favor of litigation as the default tool for resolving disputes. And this appears to be the biggest reason for the collapse in the number of new multifamily [ownership] dwellings in recent years."
Rather than the typical conflict between the plaintiffs’ bar (representing the homebuyer) and the homebuilding industry that has produced the "back-and-forth" nature of our construction defect laws in the past, this 2014 legislative session found new constituents and a different perspective on the issue. A broad ranging coalition that included the Metro Mayors Caucus, major segments of the affordable housing community, and the general business community came together to address what their research showed as an astonishing lack of construction of ownership attached housing. There was a continuing boom going on in the development of multifamily "rental" housing, but an even more unusual deficit in multifamily "ownership" housing. Research apparently showed that, although about 20% + of construction of attached housing was in the ownership format throughout the Rocky Mountain West, Colorado was only producing about 2%. Interviews conducted by the research group that was retained by this coalition revealed that the development and homebuilding community were not willing to commence construction of ownership attached housing because of the continuing threat of litigation available under current interpretations of our state's construction defect laws. Lenders were also reluctant to provide financing for such projects faced with the apparent real threat of litigation that could shut down their projects and materially impact their loan viability and the value of the loan's collateral. Moreover, insurance premiums to cover such claims were so high, and many times unavailable, as to make such projects unfeasible.
This lack of available multifamily ownership housing was creating an ever-increasing concern over the resulting imbalance of housing options in and around the metro area, where the urban character of the metro region would need such ownership options in the attached housing format in order to address the more dense character of the urban setting. This imbalance of ownership attached housing was thwarting the advancement of "community" in the context of creating opportunities for all options of housing so important for a community balance. This included ownership options in this format that address the need for the younger professionals entering the workforce, newly forming households, seniors desiring to scale down their housing size and location, as well as the segment of the market who have limited means and need to address the affordability of homeownership. This was being most clearly felt along the FasTracks lines where attached ownership housing was an important element in originally advancing the TOD communities that are expected to be developed around these transit stops.
Rather than engage the battle of creating more contention in the various aspect of construction defect legislation per se, this coalition attempted to temper their approach and address specific issues that seemed to advance protection of the consuming homeowner while, at the same time, advocating a method of dispute resolution encouraged in the state's laws regarding such issues.
Normally, attached ownership housing is developed under our state laws governing the creation of Common Interest Communities ("CIC's"), including those communities where there are units that are attached and contain common elements. These CIC's will be encumbered by certain recorded documents (normally referred to as "Declarations") that structure the "community" within which the units are located and set up certain rules and restrictions that are intended to respect the common interests of the unit owners within that community. There is also a Homeowners Association ("HOA") organized for the common interest community that is charged with the management of the common elements and the enforcement of the rule and regulations governing the community.
The coalition chose to address their concerns through a bill including a couple of changes in the state laws governing CIC's, which would provide further protection to the homeowner and advance alternative dispute resolution as an expedient approach to resolving disputes should they arise. Those changes included:
1. Majority Owner Vote Re: Litigation -Rather than allowing two owners plus a vote of the HOA Board to determine whether or not to file litigation alleging construction defects in a CIC, the proposed change would require a simple majority vote of the unit owners who are members in the respective HOA where the alleged defect occurred. This approach addressed the increasing concern of unit owners whose homes are unmarketable and not financeable during the course of any such litigation.
This does not prevent an aggrieved owner from pursuing claims regarding that person's own unit, it just requires a majority of the owners to vote for litigation that affects the entire CIC in such litigation. This approach also included a provision for advance notice to the owners of such pending litigation accompanied by several disclosures regarding the potential litigation and its potential impact on the respective owner. This approach to protecting the rights of homeowners in a CIC seemed to be in line with everyone's interests, while not preventing an individual consumer/unit owner to advance its own claims.
2. Alternative Dispute Resolution -This proposal clarified the stated intent of the CIC statutes that advances alternative dispute resolution by providing that any mandatory arbitration provisions that are already contained in the Declaration that encumbers the respective unit in a CIC shall not be changed or deleted without the permission of the Declarant (e.g.; the developer of the CIC). This provision was to affirm a provision that the purchasing unit owner was aware of at the time of purchase and that it follows the spirit and intent of the state statutes governing such CIC's.
Notwithstanding the curative nature of these proposals, the legislation did not address the issue because a legislative maneuver was employed that did not allow for its consideration during the waning days of the session.
More recently, one of Colorado's municipalities, the home rule city of Lakewood, passed a local ordinance addressing this issue in a similar fashion, with a few more definitive suggestions regarding how to alleviate the lopsided nature of our current state of law. Without going into detail at this time with that specific ordinance, or the issue of its ability to address matters of a state-wide concern at the local level, the point is that several of Colorado's local communities, frustrated with the inability of the state legislature to deal with the issue are, at the very least, sending a signal that something must be done and, if the state is unwilling to lead on this matter, local communities will have to act.
This issue has not receded into the back room, and we will see a continuing crusade from an updated coalition to address these reasonable modifications to our state laws that will at least provide some protections to the CIC homeowner regarding unwanted litigation and some relief to the homebuilding industry from excessive litigation.
James M. Mulligan is a partner in the Denver office of Snell & Wilmer, LLP, a full-service commercial law firm located in nine cities throughout the Western United States and in Mexico. The firm’s website is http://www.swlaw.com.
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Billion-Dollar Power Lines Finally Inching Ahead to Help US Grids
April 03, 2023 —
Brian Eckhouse, Naureen S Malik & Dave Merrill - BloombergThe biggest impediment to the US achieving a cleaner power grid isn't climate deniers or fossil-fuel lobbies; it’s a lack of transmission lines. The country badly needs more conduits to cart wind and solar energy and hydropower to cities.
For more than a decade, multibillion-dollar power-line projects have struggled to advance, slowed or halted by bureaucracy, NIMBYism or general industry stasis. Now suddenly, several are progressing — and with them the prospect of newly unleashed clean energy as well as more resilient grids in the face of ever-dangerous storms and extreme heatwaves.
There’s SunZia in the Southwest, TransWest Express in the Mountain West, Grain Belt Express to the Midwest, and Champlain Hudson Power Express into New York City — projects that together will cost at least $13 billion. Some are now ordering expensive equipment, a signal of their advancement. SunZia and TransWest expect to begin construction this year.
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Brian Eckhouse, Bloomberg,
Naureen S Malik, Bloomberg and
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U.S. Building Permits Soared to Their Highest Level in Nearly Eight Years
June 17, 2015 —
Michelle Jamrisko – BloombergThrough all its ups and downs, the U.S. homebuilding industry is making slow progress.
While housing starts declined 11.1 percent in May to a 1.04 million annualized rate, it followed a revised 1.17 million pace the prior month to cap the best back-to-back readings since late 2007, Commerce Department data showed Tuesday in Washington. Permits for future projects climbed to the highest level in almost eight years.
The stop-and-go nature of the rebound, which has been exacerbated by the inclement weather that brought construction to a near standstill at the start of the year, masks a steady recovery in the industry at the center of the past recession. While residential real estate has yet to fulfill its typical role as a pillar of this economic expansion, gains in hiring and bigger paychecks are brightening Americans’ moods and could lift home purchases in the second half of 2015.
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Michelle Jamrisko, Bloomberg
Structural Health Check-Ups Needed but Are Too Infrequent
August 16, 2021 —
Jeff Rubenstone - Engineering News-RecordKnowing when a building is structurally deteriorating, and actually doing something about it can be very different things, as the collapse in Surfside, Fla., has shown this month. And while onsite visual inspections are still the common kind of structural assessment, other methods can assess the health of a building or piece of infrastructure and determine its soundness (see p. 69).
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Jeff Rubenstone, Engineering News-Record
Mr. Rubenstone may be contacted at rubenstonej@enr.com
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Corps Issues Draft EIS for Controversial Alaskan Copper Mine
March 27, 2019 —
Pam Radtke Russell - Engineering News-RecordA proposed copper and gold mine in Alaska could impact up to 12,000 acres of wetlands as well as local fisheries but would help meet a worldwide demand for copper, according to the draft environmental impact statement on the Pebble Mine in the Bristol Bay area of Alaska.
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Pam Radtke Russell, ENRMs. Russell may be contacted at
Russellp@bnpmedia.com
Merger to Create Massive Los Angeles Construction Firm
July 16, 2014 —
Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFFAECOM Technology Corp., a Los Angeles engineering and construction firm, has agreed to pay $4 billion to acquire URS Corp., their San Francisco competitor. According to the Sacramento Bee, “The combined company will employ about 95,000 people in 150 countries.”
AECOM is currently building the World Trade Center in New York, and previous projects include the Los Angeles Police Department headquarters, and renovations to the Port of Los Angeles and the Bradley international terminal at the Los Angeles International Airport, the Sacramento Bee reported. Furthermore, “URS has worked on the Garden Grove (22) Freeway reconstruction, the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, the Port of Long Beach, the Gold Line Eastside Extension in Los Angeles and the Disneyland resort expansion.”
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Appellate Court Endorses Discretionary Test for Vicarious Disqualification of Law Firms Due To New Attorney’s Conflict
February 07, 2018 —
David W. Evans and Stephen M. Tye – Publications & Insights In
California Self-Insurer’s Security Fund et al. v. The Superior Court of Orange County (1/26/2018 – No. G054981), the Fourth Appellate District considered whether vicarious disqualification of a law firm is mandatory or discretionary where an attorney with a conflict joins a firm and the firm enacts an ethical screen to prevent transmission of confidential information between the new attorney and the rest of the firm.
This case arose from an effort by the California Self-Insurer’s Security Fund (the “Fund”) to be reimbursed for workers’ compensation benefits advanced on behalf of the Healthcare Industry Self-Insurance Program (the “Program”). The Fund hired Nixon Peabody LLP (“Nixon Peabody”) to represent it in connection with this matter. In November 2013, represented by members of Nixon Peabody’s San Francisco office, the Fund filed a lawsuit naming 304 members of the Program as defendants. Approximately 170 defendants have since settled.
Two of the non-settling defendants (“Moving Parties”), were represented by Michelman & Robinson, LLP (“M&R”). From approximately 2009 until February 1, 2017, attorney Andrew Selesnick served as Chair of M&R’s Health Care Department at the firm’s Los Angeles office, managing a team of attorneys who represented clients in the healthcare industry. Commencing in 2014, a team of four attorneys at M&R, including Selesnick, represented the Moving Parties and four other defendants, the latter of whom have since settled. Selesnick was actively involved, including participating in a confidential discussion pertaining to Moving Parties’ liability and damages and receiving many e-mails containing communications about the common defense of the remaining 170 defendants.
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David W. Evans, Haight Brown Bonesteel and
Stephen M. Tye, Haight Brown Bonesteel
Mr. Evans may be contacted at devans@hbblaw.com
Mr. Tye may be contacted at stye@hbblaw.com
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