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Construction Law

Construction Law Blog

Coverage of construction litigation and legislation, particularly in Washington state.
By Brett Hill, Ryan Sternoff and John Ahlers

Post Frequency: 10/day

Last Entry: March 30, 2011 at 21:00:00

Public Employee Union battle finds its way to Washington State

Posted on March 30, 2011
This blog entry follows up on the entry from March 22 that asked the question of whether the public employee union battle would come to Washington State. The answer is yes: Washington State Senator Joe Zarelli, a Ridgefield Republican, introduced a bill in the legislature on March 9, 2011 that will reject the collective bargaining agreement Governor Chris Gregoire reached with state employees in December...

Change Orders Really Float My Boat

Posted on March 30, 2011
At the risk of feeding the anxious concerns of owner representatives who may have long suspected that contractors make up for their bidding errors with high priced change orders, we attached this humorous internet photo. The boat owner is likely a contractor who apparently had no qualms about having made up for a bad contract with change orders...

Simple Copy Machine Question Turns Into A Deposition Debacle

Posted on March 28, 2011
For you contractors who thought about going to law school before you went into construction or for those few of you who went to law school and are now contractors, this is an example of real life "litigation." This is what depositions are all too frequently like...

2011 Japan Earthquake and Tsunami/Construction Fallout/Avoid Relief Scams

Posted on March 27, 2011
The north coast of Japan was rocked by a 9.0 magnitude under sea earthquake on Friday, March 11, 2011. The megathrust triggered extremely destructive Tsunami waves of up to 33 feet high that struck Japan minutes after the quake and traveled inland up to 9 miles...

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Rio's Welcome Sign (2016 Olympics)

Posted on March 27, 2011
An engineer's dream project!To view more photos click here

Signs Of The Private Construction Market Looking Up

Posted on March 23, 2011
Two years ago when my family and I drove north on I-405 through Bellevue, we would make a game out of counting how many tower cranes we could spot on the Bellevue Skyline. I remember at one point there were over ten tower cranes swinging back and forth in downtown indicating the City's prosperity...

Integrated Project Delivery ("IPD")/Owner's Expectation Not Lawyers Are The Biggest Hurdles To IPD

Posted on March 22, 2011
The Monday, March 7, 2011, Daily Journal of Commerce carried the following front page headline: "Integrated Delivery Raises Questions about Contracts/A Local Architect said one of the biggest hurdles in the using Integrated Project Delivery is lawyers...

McGinn To call for the Alaska Way Viaduct Demolition Four Years Ahead of Schedule

Posted on March 21, 2011
On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. The magnitude 9.0 quake spawned a deadly Tsunami that slammed into the nation's East coast leaving a huge swath of devastation in its wake. Thousands of people are dead and many more are missing or injured...

Will The Public Employee Union Battle Presently Raging in the Mid-West Find its way to the Pacific Northwest?

Posted on March 21, 2011
The battle for organized labor has begun in Wisconsin and Idaho and will likely be a debate in most of the state legislatures over the next few months. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and several progressives had significant questions about the right of public employees to unionize...

Government Contracting: It's Amazing What Statutes and Rules There Are That Can Be Violated in a Procurement

Posted on March 17, 2011
The government was required to "to the maximum extent feasible" purchase domestic condoms. ALATECH Healthcare, LLC v. U.S. COFC No. 09-332C (December 1, 2009).This case involved a bid protest for the procurement of condoms by a USAID prime contactor...

The Procurement Officials Can be Held Personally Accountable for Improprieties in the Bid Evaluation Process

Posted on March 15, 2011
In an Alaska bid protest case, a hearing examiner found serious improprieties by procurement officials in the bid evaluation process. The court held that the officials were entitled only to qualified immunity, not absolute immunity.A disappointed bidder learned after the contract was awarded to another contractor that the five evaluations of its bid contained grave deficiencies...

Healthcare (Obamacare) on a Turbulent Ride in the Courts

Posted on March 15, 2011
In our February 1, 2011 blog, we informed you that US District Judge Roger Vinson struck down the "individual mandate" which requires that Americans carry health insurance or pay a penalty as unconstitutional. Judge Vinson has now clarified his January ruling, the affect of that ruling as interpreted by various news sources is:The Associated Press: March 4, 2011 reports: "A federal judge who declared President Barak Obama's healthcare overhaul unconstitutional ruled Thursday that states may continue implementing it while the case makes its way through the courts...

A City in the Mountains of China...

Posted on March 09, 2011
Click here to see the rest of the slide show

Interim Washington Legislative Report: Bills of Interest to Contractors

Posted on March 09, 2011
Local Preference Bill Morphs Into Reciprocity BillLegislation that would have originally established a 7% preference for "resident contractors" on public works projects in Washington state was opposed by major contractor groups. The opposition was based on local preference being costly to taxpayers, harmful to many contractors with long time presences in the state who would fail to qualify as "resident contractors" due to the legislation's high requirement of Washington workforce members, and likely would have precipitated retaliation by neighboring states which would particularly impact contractors in Washington, Vancouver and other border areas...

Interim Washington Legislative Report: Bills of Interest to Contractors

Posted on March 08, 2011
The False Claims Act Which Would Have Compounded the Mike M. Johnson Notice Issue Dies in OlympiaA bill, modeled on the federal False Claims Act was introduced this year in the Washington Legislature. The law would have imposed civil penalties of up to $10,000 and three (3) times the amount of the government's damages on anyone who "knowingly" makes a demand or request for payment to the government that is false or fraudulent...

Is The Construction Defect Notice Statute (RCW 64.50.020) Subject to a Constitutional Challenge?

Posted on March 07, 2011
A recent Washington Supreme Court case dealing with medical malpractice has placed the constitutionality of Washington's construction defect statute in question.In Waples v. Yi, 169 Wn.2d 152, 234 P.2d 187 (2010) the Supreme Court held that RCW 7.70.100, which requires 90 days written notice to a healthcare provider prior to commencing a medical malpractice lawsuit against that provider, violated the constitutional separation of powers doctrine and is, therefore, invalid...

Jury Notice Scam Making the Rounds Again

Posted on March 06, 2011
Last week I received a call from a client who indicated she had received a call that because she missed a date at the courthouse for jury duty she faced arrest. She had the telephone number of the caller (from caller id), we ran the number through the internet and quickly learned that the call was a scam...

Interim Washington Legislative Report: Bills of Interest to Contractors

Posted on March 06, 2011
Workers' Comp: The Next Legislative BattleWorkers' Compensation is likely to take a central role in the remaining legislative session because the program is "bleeding money." Governor Gregoire, the head of the State Dept. of Labor & Industries ("L&I") and the State Auditor have all said that the system is heading towards bankruptcy...

Avoid L&I Subcontractor Workers' Compensation Assessments by Checking L&I's Website

Posted on March 03, 2011
The WA Department of Labor and Industries ("L&I") imposes assessments against general contractors for unpaid industrial insurance premiums owed by their subcontractors under RCW 51.12.070. This concept is known as "prime contractor liability...

The Future?

Posted on March 02, 2011

How Do You Tell if a "Skimmer" Has Been Put on Your ATM?

Posted on March 02, 2011
Skimmers are devices that thieves attach to the ATM card slot to capture account information from your cash card's magnetic strip. These thieves are becoming more and more sophisticated. One tip off, says Sid Kirchheimer (AARP), is if the flashing light on the ATM is obscured...

Seattle School District's Mismanagements Gives Small Business Programs an Undeserved Black Eye

Posted on March 01, 2011
Small Business is the essential engine which is bringing the US economy out of its current slump. Small business entities represent 99.7% of all employer firms, create more than half of the non-farm private gross domestic product and produce 13 times more patents per employee than large firms...

Architectural Creativity

Posted on February 28, 2011
Click here to view more photos

USDOT Announces Changes To Facilitate Interstate Reciprocity For DBE Firms

Posted on February 28, 2011
In yesterday's post, we informed you of two major changes to the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) certification process: (1) the Personal Net Worth ("PNW") cap is increased from $750,000 to $1...

Personal Net Worth Cap Increased for DBE Entities Working With USDOT

Posted on February 27, 2011
Today, February 28, 2011, two major changes to the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) certification process go into effect: (1) the Personal Net Worth ("PNW") cap is increased from $750,000 to $1...

CDC Finds no link between Chinese Drywall and Deaths

Posted on February 24, 2011
During the housing boom from 2004 to 2009, the government estimates approximately 309 million square feet of Chinese drywall was imported into the United States. Since then, more than 600 lawsuits have been filed alleging that the imported drywall contains sulfur compounds which when exposed to heat and moisture release sulfurous acids causing a noxious smell and corrosion of metals...

The Federal Court of Appeals Rules that a Surety was discharged from its obligations under the performance bond due to the Project Owner's insistence that the bonding company not use the defaulted contractor as the completion contractor

Posted on February 23, 2011
St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co. v. VDE Corp., 603 F.2nd 119 (2nd Circ. 2010) A prime contractor posted a performance bond in favor of the project owner. The performance bond issued by the surety was a standard AIA A312 (1984) form bond. During the project, the owner defaulted and terminated the contactor for, among other things, refusing to perform its contractual obligations, failing to work at a reasonable pace, abandonment of the work, and failing to act in good faith...

UPDATED WITH ATTACHMENTS: 2010 AIA Revisions to A312 Payment and Performance Bonds

Posted on February 23, 2011
We apologize but when this story was posted last week the attachments were not included. Below is the story with the links to the attachments. Again we apologize for the inconvenience.In 1984, the American Institute of Architects published its A312 Payment and Performance Bond forms...

California Court Blasts The Irvine School District For Apparent Favoritism In The Bid Process, Responsible Bid Was Wrongfully Rejected

Posted on February 21, 2011
A California Court of Appeals has re-affirmed the distinction between responsiveness and responsibility in evaluating bids on public works projects and harshly criticized a school district that wrongfully determined that a low bidder for two projects was non-responsible...

U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Earmark Ban Is A "Kick in the Gut" For Alaska

Posted on February 17, 2011
U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D, Hawaii, announced a ban on federal earmarks, which brings to an end a decades long era in which young and developing states such as Alaska and Hawaii, have found funds for basics like roads and sewer systems...

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