Key Lease Work Letter Issues When the Landlord Is Doing the Work
Law Brief®: David Pfeffer and Richard Schoenstein Discuss the Legal Implications of Infrastructure Collapses
Contractual Notice Requirements: Do You Really Need Them?
Construction Defects: Lessons Learned
California Court of Appeal Opens Doors for Construction Defect Claims Outside of the Right to Repair Act
Should a contractor’s Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance policy cover the expense of uncovering defective work causing damage to the owner’s property as well as the costs of exposing or accessing damaged building...more
Illinois may have just opened a new door for developers and owners for insurance coverage when it comes to defective construction work and commercial general liability (“CGL”) coverage. Based on the recent Illinois Supreme...more
In Acuity v. M/I Homes of Chicago, the Illinois Supreme Court overturned years of lower court precedent and established that “property damage” in the context of construction defect or faulty workmanship claims exists...more
In July 2022, the Supreme Court of New Jersey issued an opinion, Crystal Point Condominium Association, Inc. v. Kinsale Insurance Co., which considered whether (1) a condominium association that had obtained default judgments...more
Bridges, Natural Disasters and Liability - The Skanska Decision (Part 2) - In the last edition of The Site Report, we discussed the legal issues surrounding the damage caused by Skanska's construction barges to the new...more
Construction defect cases often involve damage claims beyond simply the cost to repair the allegedly defective unit or component. These consequential damages may include damages for loss of use, expenses for mitigation and...more
In Berkley Specialty Ins. Co. v. Masterforce Constr. Corp., No. 4:19-CV-01162, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14006 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 26, 2021) (Brann, J.), the Court recently concluded that, under Pennsylvania law, all reasonably...more
In Builders Mut. Ins. Co. v. Island Pointe, LLC, No. 27970, 2020 S.C. LEXIS 68 (May 13, 2020), the South Carolina Supreme Court clarified that insurers are not required and, absent unusual circumstances...more
McMillin Homes Constr., Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 35 Cal.App.5th 1042 (2019); Fourth Appellate District Court of Appeal, Division One, Case No. D074219 (June 5, 2019). McMillin Homes Construction, Inc....more
Westfield Ins. Co. v. Weaver Cooke Constr., LLC, 2019 BL 129431 (E.D.N.C. Apr. 11, 2019) - This case arises out of the alleged defective construction of a condominium complex in North Carolina. In 2009, the developer on...more
On October 9, 2018, in Ohio N. University v. Charles Constr. Servs., Inc., Slip Opinion 2018-Ohio-4057, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that property damage caused by a subcontractor’s allegedly defective work was not covered...more
In Harper Construction Co. v. National Union Fire Insurance Co. of Pittsburgh, the Southern District of California rejected an insured’s attempt to expand a CGL policy’s definition of “suit” to encompass mere demands without...more
Maxum Indemnity Co. v. Robbins Co., P.C., No. 1:17-CV-01968, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57729 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 28, 2018) - On March 21, 2018, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio granted a motion...more
Satterfield & Pontikes Constr., Inc. v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 21488 (5th Cir. Aug. 2, 2018) - This case arises out of an excess insurance provider’s refusal to cover damages incurred by the...more
Addison Ins. Co. v. 4000 Island Blvd. Condo. Ass’n, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 26870 (11th Cir. Dec. 28, 2017) - The owner of a high-rise condominium building in Florida hired a contractor to replace the building’s concrete...more
The Supreme Court of Florida recently issued an opinion in Altman Contractors, Inc. v. Crum & Forster Specialty Ins. Co., No. SC16-1420, 2017 WL 6379535 (Fla. Dec. 14, 2017), which impacts an insurer’s duty to defend and...more
Ohio has joined the majority of jurisdictions in holding that a general liability policy may provide coverage for claims made by a project owner for property damage allegedly caused by the defective work of a subcontractor....more
One of the principal points of contention between insurers and insureds is whether defective construction work is, or can be, an occurrence, thereby triggering coverage. Originally published in ConsensusDocs (Vol. 3,...more
As this blog has reported, a line of cases deciding coverage disputes over faulty workmanship runs against (or, at least, around) a basic rule for interpreting insurance policies. Under that rule, the scope of coverage is...more
In an important recent decision, New Jersey joined a growing number of states holding that Insurance Services Office’s (ISO) 1986 comprehensive general liability (CGL) policy extends coverage to a property developer faced...more
Action Item: Developers and contractors, as well as commercial and residential property owners and occupants, must be aware of a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision in Cypress Point Condominium Association, Inc. v. Adria...more
The Colorado Supreme Court has approved a settlement between the parties to an appeal of the 2012 Colorado Pool Systems v. Scottsdale Insurance Company Court of Appeals case, leaving that ruling intact. The ruling parses a...more
After an insurer pays for a covered loss by an owner under a property policy the insurer generally has the right, whether under the common law, statute or the policy itself, to seek recovery of the payment from the...more
The recent decision of Allied Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Metro North Condominium Associates highlights why only a minority of jurisdictions still hold to the fiction that construction defects cannot give rise to an...more