Seattle Washington Building Expert Directory

AI – A Designer’s Assistant or a Replacement?

November 28, 2022 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
Over the last few months, we’ve seen an online explosion of AI-powered text and image generators. Many non-designers welcome these tools as a way to express themselves and create results that would have taken professionals days to complete. The obvious question is, should designers start feeling scared? Interior designs from a photo you upload In Business of Home, Fred Nicolaus writes about how he tested with an L.A. designer Shaun Crha an online tool called Interior AI. They uploaded pictures of empty rooms, selected basic prompts (“midcentury modern bathroom,” for example), and watched the machine go. After tweaking the tool settings, they started getting impressive results. Launched in September 2022, Interior AI is the creation of Pieter Levels, a programmer. He built the site in five days by connecting it to a commercially available AI engine called Stable Diffusion. It has been trained with images from Pinterest and other photo sources. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

Court Orders House to be Demolished or Relocated

April 26, 2011 — Beverley BevenFlorezCDJ STAFF

Decision Affirmed in Central Arkansas Foundation Homes, LLC v. Rebecca Choate

The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed the decision by the trial court in Central Arkansas Foundation Homes, LLC v. Rebecca Choate. In the trial case, Central Arkansas Foundation Homes (CAFH) sought payment for a home built for Choate, while Choate alleged that the builders committed multiple construction defects including using the wrong foundation materials and positioning the house in the wrong direction.

After the house was built, CAFH contacted Choate regarding payment, however, Choate alleged that the finished product did not match the contract. “ After CAFH completed construction, it obtained permanent home financing for Choate and tried to contact her to close the transaction. Choate did not respond until October 2005, when she sent CAFH a list of alleged construction defects, including that the house was facing in the wrong direction; that it was not built on a slab; and that the fireplace, garbage disposal, driveway, and storage area were missing. CAFH replied to Choate in writing, telling her that she had until January 6, 2006, to close on the house or CAFH would sell it. The correspondence enclosed worksheets showing that the amount Choate would owe at closing exceeded $94,000, which included interest that had accrued on the as-yet unpaid construction loan.”

Initially, the court found in favor of CAFH. “On April 18, 2007, Choate’s attorney withdrew from representing her. Soon thereafter, CAFH’s attorney asked the court to set a final hearing on the case. The attorney purportedly sent Choate a letter by regular mail on May 15, 2007, advising her that the case was set for trial on July 9, 2007. Choate, however, did not appear. CAFH did appear, and its general manager, John Oldner, testified to events leading up to the case and the amount of damages claimed. According to Oldner, the interest on the construction loan had accrued to the point that CAFH now sought $104,965.88 from Choate. The court found in favor of CAFH and entered judgment for that amount, plus attorney fees, on July 18, 2007. The court ruled that CAFH could sell the house and either remit any excess to Choate or look to Choate for the deficiency if the sales price did not cover the judgment.”

However, Choate successfully argued that she did not receive notice of the trial. A new trial was ordered, and the outcome was quite different. “On June 6, 2008, the circuit court entered judgment for Choate, ruling that the house was not in substantial compliance with the parties’ contract and that the contract should be rescinded. The court found that the house suffered from numerous construction defects, that the contract contemplated a slab rather than a concrete-pier foundation, and that CAFH ignored Choate’s complaints that the house was facing the wrong way. The judgment directed CAFH to hold Choate harmless on the construction loan, to deed Choate’s two acres back to her, and to remove the house from Choate’s property.”

The Court of Appeals “found that Choate would be unjustly enriched by retaining the benefit of the septic systems and utility lines that CAFH installed on her land. The court therefore awarded $5340 to CAFH as a quantum-meruit recovery for the value of that work. CAFH contends that the award is not sufficient, but we see no clear error.” In the end, the Court of Appeals provided this reason for declining to reverse the trial court’s decision: “The court in this case apparently concluded that the house constructed by CAFH was so fundamentally at odds with Choate’s contractual expectations that she was not unjustly enriched and should simply be, as nearly as possible, returned to the status quo ante. Accordingly, the court ordered the house removed from her property and permitted CAFH to either relocate the house or salvage the house’s materials and unused appliances. We decline to reverse the court’s weighing of the equities in this manner.”

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Georgia Coal-to-Solar Pivot Shows the Way on Climate Regs

July 02, 2014 — Mark Drajem and Margaret Newkirk – Bloomberg
Georgia small-business owner Julian Smith keeps hearing that the Obama administration’s latest climate regulations will drive up local electric bills. He doesn’t believe the prediction, but he isn’t arguing: The fears are doing wonders for his solar-panel installation company. “My phone is blowing up with new customers,” Smith, owner of SolarSmith LLC of Savannah, said in an interview. “It turns out that if you tell everybody the amount they will spend on electricity will skyrocket, they will believe you.” In Smith’s home state, as in the rest of the nation, businesses and consumers are struggling to size up competing claims about the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to cut carbon pollution from power plants, released June 2. The proposed regulations are among the most sweeping and complex in the EPA’s history, promising to revamp the way electricity has been generated and distributed for a century. Mr. Drajem may be contacted at mdrajem@bloomberg.net; Ms. Newkirk may be contacted at mnewkirk@bloomberg.net Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Mark Drajem and Margaret Newkirk, Bloomberg

William Doerler Recognized by JD Supra 2022 Readers’ Choice Awards

March 14, 2022 — William Doerler - White and Williams LLP
Congratulations to Bill Doerler, Counsel of the Subrogation Group who has been recognized as a top author in Product Liability in the 2022 JD Supra Readers' Choice Awards. Bill was ranked number 9 out of a pool of approximately 800 authors writing about product liability matters on JD Supra in 2021. The Readers’ Choice Awards recognize top authors and firms for their thought leadership in key topics read by C-suite executives, in-house counsel, media and other professionals across the JD Supra platform during 2021. These annual awards (now in their seventh year) recognize JD Supra contributors for the visibility and engagement their thought leadership earned among readers in select subjects during the previous 12 months. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of William Doerler, White and Williams LLP
Mr. Doerler may be contacted at doerlerw@whiteandwilliams.com

Pipeline Safety Violations Cause of Explosion that Killed 8

April 02, 2014 — Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFF
Bloomberg Business Week reported that “PG&E Corp. (PCG:US), owner of California’s largest utility, was charged with 12 pipeline safety violations by the U.S. government for a 2010 natural gas explosion that killed eight people and left a crater the size of a house.” PG&E was charged “with knowingly and willfully violating the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act by failing to test and assess unstable pipelines to determine whether they could fail.” Furthermore, “Federal investigators are studying whether a leaking gas main operated by Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED:US) contributed to an explosion in New York City last month that also claimed eight lives.” Read the court decision
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2022 Construction Outlook: Continuing Growth But at Slower Pace

January 24, 2022 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
In the midst of a pandemic that has lasted far longer than I think many of us thought it would, it’s been a study in contrasts:

There has been over 305 million COVID-19 cases and 5.5 million deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic.
The U.S. stock market gained a whopping 26.9% in 2021.
The annual rate of inflation in the U.S. hit 6.8% in November 2021 the highest it has been in nearly 40 years.
The U.S. unemployment rate stood at 4.2% at the end of 2021, down from 14.7% in April 2020, the second highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression.
The Doomsday Clock struck 100 seconds before midnight in 2021 as scientists warn that global leaders are doing too little too late to combat climate change that has seen global temperatures rise roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the pre-industrial era.
2021 saw the launch of the first all-civilian spaceflight by Elon Musk’s Space X which was just one of 16 private spaceflights by tech billionaires Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

For the construction industry, when we started out in 2021, economists were estimating that construction starts would be up just 4% in 2021 after taking a 14% free-fall in 2020. As it turned out, construction starts increased 12% in 2021. That’s why economic forecasts should be viewed less like a marksmanship competition and more like horseshoes and hand grenades. Close is about the best you can realistically hope for. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

City Development with Interactive 3D Models

October 23, 2018 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
The Finnish city of Hyvinkää has developed a unique internet service for collaborative 3D city planning. It gives real estate owners, investors, developers, designers, authorities, and citizens easy-to-use tools to publish their 3D plans and ideas for the built city environment. Participants can comment on the 3D plans directly in the city model. The 3D app is integrated with Facebook, which enables further conversation. Building the 3D City Model Päivi Tiihonen is the manager of the information services unit of the city’s technical and environmental sector. The city started building a browser-based 3D city model when Tiihonen assumed her position in 2014. Read the court decision
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Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

Official Tried to Influence Judge against Shortchanged Subcontractor

February 10, 2012 — CDJ STAFF

A contractor testified in the trial of former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora. According to Fox 8 in Cleveland, Ohio, Sean Newman, the president of Letter Perfect testified that his company was a subcontractor on the reconstruction of the locker rooms at the Cleveland Browns Stadium. Newman said his company was paid only $400,000 of their $650,000 bid. When Letter Perfect sued the contractor, D.A.S. Construction, Dimora called the judge to influence her to rule in favor of D.A.S.

The judge in the earlier case, Bridgett McCafferty, has been found guilty of lying to the FBI during their investigation and is serving a 14-month prison sentence.

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