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DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Business Insurance Names Rachel Hudgins Among 2024 Break Out Award Winners

April 22, 2024 — Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog
We are pleased to announce that counsel Rachel E. Hudgins has been recognized as one of Business Insurance’s 2024 Break Out Award winners. The magazine’s Break Out Awards honor 40 top professionals each year from a competitive field of nominees who have under 15 years’ experience in the insurance and risk management sector and are “on track to be the next leaders in the risk management and property/casualty insurance field.” Clients describe Rachel as their “chief contact for high-exposure coverage work.” She meets clients where they are with a curiosity and interest in their business strategies, as well as an ability to distill complex insurance concepts into digestible terms. Rachel also has depth of experience in coverage litigation. She has litigated hundreds of insurance coverage and bad faith claims in state and federal courts across the country and US territories. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

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To Ease Housing Crunch, Theme Parks Are Becoming Homebuilders

January 29, 2024 — Patrick Sisson - Bloomberg
For visitors, Universal Studios Florida offers a chance to visit a fantastical land full of wizards, Minions and various characters from NBC Universal’s many film and television properties. But for the roughly 28,000 men and women who work at the 840-acre theme park and resort complex in Orlando, the troubles of the real world — like the rising cost of housing — are not far away. Central Florida has seen some of the nation’s fastest pandemic-era rent increases, thanks to a confluence of job growth, migration and housing underproduction that has put a strain on residents. The average tenant in the region saw their monthly rent jump by $600 between early 2020 and early 2023. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area has one of the worst affordable housing shortages in the US, with only 15 available units for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. The dire need for workforce housing is behind the entertainment conglomerate’s latest project in Central Florida: a 1,000-unit mixed-use development, set to open in 2026, that promises to give tenants who work in the service industry a short commute to the constellation of tourist attractions and hotels nearby. To launch the project, Universal donated 20 acres of land adjacent to the Orange County convention center. Called Catchlight Crossings and built in partnership with local developer Wendover Housing Partners, the project broke ground in November. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Patrick Sisson, Bloomberg

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Restoring the USS Alabama: Surety Lessons From an 80-Year-Old Battleship

November 13, 2023 — Richard Sghiatti - Construction Executive
It’s not every day that a construction company gets to renovate an 80-year-old battleship. Yet that’s exactly where Youngblood-Barrett Construction & Engineering workers found themselves when they began restoring the main deck of the USS Alabama, a storied World War II battleship. The USS Alabama has a remarkable past. One of four South Dakota–class battleships, the “Mighty A” was commissioned in 1942. It deployed first to the Atlantic and then to the Pacific, where it earned nine battle stars for meritorious service. At 680 feet long and 108 feet wide, the “Heroine of the Pacific” had a wartime crew of 2,500 men. By 1962, though, the Navy was ready to scrap it. That’s when the state of Alabama decided to acquire the ship and preserve it as a museum. The USS Alabama was moved to Mobile and opened to the public in January 1965. Reprinted courtesy of Richard Sghiatti, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the full story...

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The (Jurisdictional) Rebranding of The CDA’s Sum Certain Requirement

April 15, 2024 — Jordan A. Hutcheson and Stephanie Rolfsness - Watt Tieder
The Contract Disputes Act (the “CDA”), 41 U.S.C.A. §§ 7101 et seq., which has provided the statutory framework for resolution of most contract disputes between the federal government and its contractors since 1978, has recently been the subject of changes in judicial interpretation, despite no corresponding statutory changes. The CDA’s implementing provisions in the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR), require that contractors submit a claim to the government in the form of written demand to a contracting officer requesting a final decision and seeking the payment of money in a sum certain prior to pursuing resolution via board or court. However, with respect to the sum certain requirement, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in late 2023 determining that this requirement “should not be given the jurisdictional brand” as it has categorically received in the past. Rather, the court concluded that the sum certain requirement is merely an element of a claim for relief under the CDA that a contractor must satisfy to recover. This rebranding does not debase the sum certain requirement, but it does indicate a renewed focus on what constitutes “jurisdictional” in government contracts litigation. Reprinted courtesy of Jordan A. Hutcheson, Watt Tieder and Stephanie Rolfsness, Watt Tieder Ms. Hutcheson may be contacted at jhutcheson@watttieder.com Ms. Rolfsness may be contacted at srolfsness@watttieder.com Read the full story...

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Florida's New Pre-Suit Notification Requirement: Retroactive or Prospective Application?

February 05, 2024 — Holly A. Rice - Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Florida’s newly formed Sixth District Court of Appeal (“Sixth DCA”) recently certified conflict with Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on the issue of retroactive application of the pre-suit notice requirement contained in Florida Statute §627.70152.1 Earlier this year, the Fourth District Court of Appeal (“Fourth DCA”) held that the pre-suit notice provision applies retroactively, meaning, it applies to all suits filed after July 1, 2021, regardless when the insurance policy was issued.2 The Sixth DCA, in Hughes v. Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Company,3 directly rejected the Fourth DCA’s interpretation and instead found a retroactive application of the pre-suit notice to be unconstitutional under Florida law. Prior to the Fourth DCA’s ruling, most trial courts had found no retroactive application for the pre-suit notice provision.4 In August 2021, shortly after Florida Statutes Section 627.70152 went into effect on July 1, 2021, Rebecca Hughes (“Hughes”) sued Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Company (“Universal Property”) for breach of contract after Universal Property denied her insurance claim. Hughes did not file a pre-suit notice under Section 627.70152. Universal Property moved to dismiss based on Hughes’ failure to file the pre-suit notice, arguing that the pre-suit notice requirement applies to all lawsuits filed after July 1, 2021, even if the claimant’s insurance policy was issued before the statute’s effective date. The trial court agreed with Universal Property and dismissed the lawsuit. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Holly A. Rice, Saxe Doernberger & Vita, P.C.
Ms. Rice may be contacted at HRice@sdvlaw.com

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Natural Hydrogen May Seem New in Town, but It’s Been Here All Along

April 22, 2024 — Elina Teplinsky & Sheila McCafferty Harvey - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
When it comes to renewable energy, hydrogen is hailed as a pivotal resource in the zero-carbon game plan. Hydrogen energy is accessible, produces lower greenhouse gas emissions and can use existing gas infrastructure to power electricity and heat, produce other gases and fuels, and more. Recently, a “new” type of hydrogen—has captured the attention of climate scientists. Natural hydrogen—often referred to as gold hydrogen—stands apart from other, more established types of hydrogen, which require extraction and expensive maneuvering to produce. Natural hydrogen exists underground in its pure form (i.e., it’s not combined with other molecules). Estimates vary, but some researchers suspect that Earth holds as much as five million megatons of hydrogen beneath our feet. Extracting just 2 percent of that supply, in theory, has the potential to get us to net-zero emissions for 200 years. From Past Prediction to Accidental Discovery Viacheslav Zgonnik, CEO of the Denver-based startup Natural Hydrogen Energy, told the New York Times that Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev (also known as the “Father of the Periodic Table”) wrote about the presence of natural hydrogen as long ago as 1888. Somehow, the information was lost along the way, and when pockets of such hydrogen were occasionally found, they were treated as anomalies. Reprinted courtesy of Elina Teplinsky, Pillsbury and Sheila McCafferty Harvey, Pillsbury Ms. Teplinsky may be contacted at elina.teplinsky@pillsburylaw.com Ms. Harvey may be contacted at sheila.harvey@pillsburylaw.com Read the full story...

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Jason Feld Awarded Volunteer of the Year by Claims & Litigation Management Alliance

April 15, 2024 — Linda Carter - Kahana Feld
On April 3, 2024, Kahana Feld’s Co-Founding Partner, Jason Feld was honored by the Claims & Litigation Management Alliance (CLM) with the Inaugural Volunteer of the Year award. The CEO of CLM, Ronna Ruppelt stated, “The new CLM Volunteer of the Year award honors dedicated members who passionately serve the CLM community. Jason’s service spans over a decade as both the President and Director of Events for the Orange County Chapter. Under his guidance, this chapter has flourished – not only educating and connecting the CLM community but rallying members to give back to the local community through service events in the process. Jason is also a frequent writer, speaker, and contributor for CLM events, and we are proud to honor him as our inaugural CLM Volunteer of the Year.” Mr. Feld is a renowned nationwide construction claims leader who actively speaks at industry events. He serves as panel counsel for many prominent insurance carriers and provides personal counsel for multiple national and regional builders, developers, and contractors. With his vast experience and expertise, Mr. Feld is a trusted authority in the field and is highly regarded for his legal representation. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Linda Carter, Kahana Feld
Ms. Carter may be contacted at lcarter@kahanafeld.com

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Products Liability Law – Application of Economic Loss Rule

April 02, 2024 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
When it comes to product liability law, one important doctrine that will always come up is the economic loss rule. The economic loss rule, oftentimes going by its acronym ELR, lives and breathes in the realm of product liability law. Does the economic loss rule extend to a manufacturer’s distributor for a duty to warn when the product is NOT defective? A recent opinion out of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, NBIS Construction & Transport Ins. Services v. Liebherr-America, Inc., 2024 WL 861257 (11th Cir. 2024), was confronted with this question, including whether the economic loss rule should even extend to a distributor of a product, and certified the following to Florida’s Supreme Court to answer: “Whether, under Florida law, the economic loss rule applies to negligence claims against a distributor of a product, stipulated to be non-defective, for the failureto alert a product owner of a known danger, when the only damages claimed are to the product itself?” NBIS, supra, at *8. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

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