Source: https://www.irmi.com, July 2017 By: Jeff Slivka, New Day Underwriting Managers LLC Over the past year, questions have increasingly emerged about construction specifications and the subsequent professional liability exposures they pose to contractors. First, it’s important to identify the two basic types of construction specifications: design and performance. Design Specifications The most common concerns prescriptive […]

Source: http://wvmetronews.com, July 13, 2017 By: Carrie Hodousek Charleston’s Yeager Airport has entered into a partial settlement with an engineering firm it sued following the 2015 hillside collapse at the end of the airport’s main runway. Yeager’s Resolution Committee announced Thursday it has settled with Triad Engineering, Inc. for $900,000. “It releases the officers and […]

Source: http://www.lexology.com, July 12, 2017 By: Carly Miller, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP In a recent Missouri appellate decision, the court recognized and reaffirmed the Spearin Doctrine which provides that an owner impliedly warrants the adequacy of plans and specifications it provides to a contractor. In Penzel Construction v. Jackson R-2 School District et al., […]

Source: http://www.ecmweb.com, December 1, 2008 By: Leonard Greene, P.E., Orbital Engineering and Consulting Maintenance technician makes shocking discovery while performing routine service call on middle school’s A/C unit. When the work order came across his desk, it seemed like any other routine maintenance call to the school district’s service technician — certainly nothing out of […]

Source: http://www.jdsupra.com, July 5, 2017 By: Williams Mullen If you are a design professional providing services in Virginia, or a general contractor on a public works project for the Commonwealth of Virginia, you need to know of two Virginia Supreme Court decisions in 2016. You ask why? The answer is because your current practices and […]

Source: http://www.lexology.com, June 29, 2017 By: R. Bruce Wallace, Nexsen Pruet Recently, the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina granted judgment in favor of an insurance carrier, finding the carrier did not owe a duty of defense or a duty to indemnify the insured in an underlying professional malpractice claim. In […]

Source: http://safety.blr.com, June 30, 2017 Just a month after a worker died while working in an unprotected trench, OSHA inspectors found another employee of the same Missouri plumbing contractor working in an unprotected trench at another jobsite. OSHA inspectors found that, in both cases, the contractor failed to provide basic safeguards to prevent trench collapse […]

Source: http://www.securityinfowatch.com, April 26, 2017 By: Keith Gushard A $5.2 million civil lawsuit has been filed in Crawford County Court of Common Pleas in connection with a fire that gutted the Titusville Towne Square building more than two years ago. The 17-count lawsuit has been filed by Erie Insurance Exchange, as it was the insurance […]

Source: http://www.constructiondive.com, April 19, 2017 By: Kim Slowey Dive Brief: Mercedes-Benz Stadium officials have announced that issues with the retractable roof will delay the $1.5 billion venue’s opening for a third time, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Atlanta Falcons officials said the new opening date has been pushed from July 30 to August 26, when […]

Source: http://www.latimes.com, April 17, 2017 By: Ralph Vartabedian Design flaws, construction shortcomings and maintenance errors caused the Oroville Dam spillway to break apart in February, according to an independent analysis by Robert Bea for the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at UC Berkeley. Bea, a co-founder of the center and retired civil engineering professor, found […]

Source: https://therealdeal.com, April 17, 2017 By: Francisco Alvarado An Aventura-based architecture firm allegedly left McKafka Development Group hanging, delaying construction on its 90-unit high-rise called the Crimson in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, according to a lawsuit. McKafka, through its limited liability company Alpine Estates, accuses International Design Engineering and Architecture, or I.D.E.A. for short, of breaching […]

Source: http://pamplinmedia.com, April 4, 2017 By: Nick Budnick While PCC has blamed the construction company that built the Newberg building, claiming at least $3.4 million to cover costs, the construction company has instead faulted the college for its design of the building and accused school officials of failing to address the roof’s problems in a […]