Source: Berkley Design Professional, https://www.berkleydp.com/ A small civil/survey firm had a master agreement with a municipality to provide on-call engineering services and periodic site inspections. The firm’s individual projects were handled with a purchase order, not a contract. On a road improvement project a motorcyclist was severely injured when the driver lost control and crashed […]

Source: Berkley Design Professional, https://www.berkleydp.com/ Grading for a new road entering private land for a new office building abutting a state highway was determined utilizing a drone survey. The civil-surveyor neglected to field check benchmark elevations from the aerial survey with actual elevations at the interface of the property to the state highway. The new […]

Source: Berkley Design Professional, https://www.berkleydp.com/ Elevation data for curb height was improperly represented in the CAD files and plotted to the hard copy construction documents for a 2,500 linear-foot-portion of a concrete curb surrounding a large bus storage parking area. The policyholder, a civil/surveyor firm, neglected to perform a check of the 2D construction document […]

Source: Berkley Design Professional, https://www.berkleydp.com/ Auto Dealership Drama An architect designed an auto dealership and its scope of services included civil engineering and construction contract administration. Several years later, when the owner entered into negotiations to sell the dealership, the purchaser’s inspector discovered multiple construction defects – some of which caused water intrusion that were […]

Source: https://www.law.com/, October 22, 2020 By: Jacqueline Greenberg Vogt Delays are inevitable in construction. They can also cause the project owner to lose a lot of money resulting from contractor claims, loss of use of the project, the cost of construction funding and other damages which are incurred when a project extends beyond the scheduled […]

Source: https://iclg.com/, June 8m 2020 By: Faegre Drinker Among various other disruptions and turbulence that COVID-19 has brought to the construction industry, it has also introduced new concerns about the way we use and design public spaces. These insights provide new and distinctive opportunities — and risks. What design changes should professionals put in practice […]

Source: https://www.businessinsurance.com/, December 17, 2019 By: Judy Greenwald Massachusetts’ top court affirmed summary judgment Monday in favor of a CNA Financial Corp. unit in a professional liability case in which its policyholder had refused to agree to a settlement. The unanimous ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts also held in Douglas M. Rawan and […]

Source: November 21, 2019 By: Charles E. Fombrun and Freddy X. Munoz Design professionals such as architects and engineers are exposed to significant risk and potential liability for errors and omissions in their designs and other work on construction projects. In addition to potential up-front design errors, many professionals participate in project administration, which includes […]

Source: https://www.newcivilengineer.com/, November 14, 2019 By: Sa,m Sholli A catalogue of engineering errors during design and construction led to the fatal collapse of the Florida International University bridge, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has ruled in its final report. The report concludes that design calculation errors made by Figg Bridge Engineers were ultimately […]

Source: https://www.theadvertiser.com, October 24, 2019 By: Todd A. Price In the wake of the partial collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel construction site on Oct 12, 11 lawsuits have been filed by site workers, nearby businesses, bystanders and the children of two of the men killed. All but one of the lawsuits, filed in Orleans Parish […]

Source: https://www.thesunchronicle.com, October 22, 2019 A Miami university bridge that collapsed and killed six people last year showed significant design errors and should have been more carefully monitored by the state government because of the project’s complexity, federal officials said Tuesday. The National Transportation Safety Board members concluded that the design firm FIGG Bridge Engineers, […]

Source: USA today Online, October 22, 2019 Posted on: https://www.advisen.com A doomed design was the “probable cause” of the horrific collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Miami last year that killed six people and injured 10, the National Transportation Safety Board found Tuesday. The 174-foot-bridge section, designed to connect Florida International University with the city of Sweetwater, was still under […]