DONNELLSON IOWA CONSTRUCTION EXPERT WITNESS
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

CA Civil Code § 8850: What Private Multi-state Owners and Developers Building in California in 2026 Need to Know

January 26, 2026 — Anand Gupta - Construction Law Zone Blog
Owners and developers building in California must be aware of a new statute, CA Civil Code § 8850, which takes effect for contracts entered into, on, and after January 1, 2026. The statute will likely apply to most private construction projects; however, a carve-out exists for residential projects that are not mixed use and are four stories or less. When a contractor—or, with proper authorization, a subcontractor—submits a claim related to payment, time extensions, damages, or change orders (encompassing the majority of construction disputes), the owner must provide a written response within 30 days. This response must clearly state which portions of the claim are disputed and which are not. The owner has 60 days from the date of its response to issue payment for those undisputed amounts. Late payments will accrue interest at a rate of two percent per month. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Anand Gupta, Robinson & Cole
Mr. Gupta may be contacted at agupta@rc.com

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When Your Scheduler Hallucinates: Managing AI Risk on the Job Site

March 03, 2026 — Jason Loring - ConsensusDocs
Artificial intelligence has moved from the conference room to the construction site. Contractors are using AI-powered tools to predict schedule delays, monitor safety through drone footage, optimize equipment maintenance and flag potential hazards in real time. These tools deliver genuine efficiency gains, but they also introduce risks that most construction contracts do not anticipate and many project teams aren’t yet equipped to manage. The problem is that AI tools are probabilistic and not determinative, meaning that they can “hallucinate”: generating confident, but completely wrong, information. Your AI scheduling software might therefore predict a delay that never materializes, causing unnecessary resource mobilization. Your drone monitoring might flag a nonexistent safety hazard, stopping work and costing productivity. Or worse, it might miss a real hazard entirely. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Jason Loring, Jones Walker LLP
Mr. Loring may be contacted at jloring@joneswalker.com

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How AI Turns Construction Documents Into Procurement Intelligence

May 05, 2026 — Aarni Heiskanen - AEC Business
MEP equipment accounts for up to 40% of costs on data center or hospital projects, has lead times ranging from 20 weeks to over a year, and has historically been the most underserved area in construction software. In this episode, I speak with Victor Muchiri from BuildVision about what it actually takes to make AI useful in construction procurement, not as a pilot, but in production. We dig into why you cannot simply upload a set of construction drawings to ChatGPT and trust the output. Construction documents are complex, cross-referenced, and consequential. Without deep domain context, such as manufacturer ontologies, equipment taxonomies, and engineering expertise, AI produces plausible results, not reliable ones. BuildVision’s approach is to act as a harness around AI models, wrapping them in construction-specific knowledge so the output can be trusted for real procurement decisions. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Aarni Heiskanen, AEC Business
Mr. Heiskanen may be contacted at aec-business@aepartners.fi

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Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (3/11/25) – An AI Inflection Point for Hotels, Investor Pivot in Build-to-Rent and Looming Legislation for Single-Family Investors

March 24, 2026 — Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
In our latest roundup, lodging demand for World Cup brings growth, commercial property management firms use of AI becomes firmer, construction industry shows slow start to the year, and more!

• The hotel industry has reached an inflection point, where owners and developers are embracing artificial intelligence more, but are also increasingly in need of greater guidance on how to convert early adoption into long-term returns. (Jenna Graber, Hotel Dive)
• While the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup is expected to bring notable RevPAR gains to U.S. host cities, the overall domestic impact will be negligible. (Noor Adatia, Hotel Dive)
• Company leaders’ often vague predictions of how AI will be adopted are giving way to more fully formed strategies in the commercial real estate industry. (Joe Burns, Facilities Dive)

Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team

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Can Foreclosure Sale Be Overturned Because Sale Price Is Grossly Inadequate?

January 26, 2026 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
Foreclosure actions are equity actions. See Verzura Construction, Inc. v. Hotel La Petitite Muse, LLC, 50 Fla.L.Weekly D2500a (Fla. 3d DCA 2025). Can a sale price at a foreclosure auction sale be set aside because the foreclosed party believes the sale price is grossly inadequate? A recent case discusses this question and, as you will see, the argument that the sale price is grossly inadequate is not enough to overturn a sale. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

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Fourth Circuit Extends Coverage to Contractor

May 14, 2026 — Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog
The Fourth Circuit in APAC-Atlantic, Inc. v. Owners Insurance Co., No. 24-1969, 2026 WL 458402 (4th Cir. Feb. 18, 2026) recently endorsed broad coverage for additional insureds, interpreting “arising out of” broadly under North Carolina law to extend coverage to a repaving company under its subcontractor’s liability insurance policy. The court held that an additional insured’s liability “arising out of” a named insured’s work in an additional-insured endorsement means liability “relating to” or “causally connected to” the named insured’s operations, rather than liability defined more narrowly as “caused by” or “the fault of” the named insured. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

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Recognize: A Construction Safety Week Technical Bulletin

February 23, 2026 — Construction Safety Week - Construction Executive
Construction Safety Week has long been a powerful show of force, a catalyst for bringing the industry together and putting a spotlight on the critical importance of safety. It represents a shared commitment across an expansive and impactful Industry. The construction industry is a major employer and significant contributor to the U.S. economy, creating nearly $2.1 trillion worth of structures each year—and with that scale comes immense responsibility— and opportunity. Over the last decade, we’ve made meaningful strides: advancing best practices, transitioning from hard hats to helmets, shedding light on vital issues that affect safety, like mental health, fostering a culture of care and accountability, and creating partnerships and initiatives for improving jobsite safety. Reprinted courtesy of Construction Safety Week, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the full story...

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New LA Home Designs, Reimagined By Fire

January 13, 2026 — Patrick Sisson - Bloomberg
One year after wildfires tore through neighborhoods in Los Angeles County, killing at least 31 people and destroying more than 10,000 buildings, architects and developers are rethinking what home looks like in LA, and how resilient residential architecture evolves. Recovery from the costly disaster is a long way away. So far, hundreds of new homes have been submitted for permitting, but it’s a process shaping out to be an uneven one, based on damage, insurance and wealth. Affected homeowners are grappling with the details of fire-resilient construction and landscaping techniques, along with some more fundamental questions about what their communities should look like. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Patrick Sisson, Bloomberg

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