To Ease Housing Crunch, Theme Parks Are Becoming Homebuilders
January 29, 2024 —
Patrick Sisson - BloombergFor 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.
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Patrick Sisson, Bloomberg
TOP TAKE-AWAY SERIES: The 2023 Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C.
November 13, 2023 —
Marissa L. Downs & Jennifer M. Kanady - The Dispute ResolverOver 500 construction lawyers, experts, and consultants descended on Washington last week for the Forum’s 2023 Fall Meeting. Newly minted Forum Chair John Cook and Program Coordinators Catherine Delorey and Brian Zimmerman put together a stellar program focused on navigating government construction. For this installation of the post-meeting post, I'm teaming up with guest contributor, Jennifer Kanady, to bring you 10 of our top take-aways from this unique program.
10. Contracting with the government is replete with risk that could easily trap the unwary. Nobody likes to be taken advantage of. But hell hath no fury like the U.S. Government scorned. Erin Cannon-Wells and Aaron Silberman, gave a (truly) delightful, Indiana-Jones-inspired presentation on the regulations that can doom the unwitting contractor who is less than perfectly forthright in its dealings. The government has created financial incentives for members of the public to report your company’s violations as part of a qui tam action. When you consider the number of potential whistleblowers in the bidding process and the contracting chain, a qui tam action would seem more likely than not. Add to that the sanctions contractors might face for even innocent errors either by their own companies or their downstream subs, and government contracting begins to sound increasingly like the Temple of Doom. Oh, and in case you were only focused on affirmative claims, beware the “reverse false claim” which is concealing information that would rightfully entitle the government to a credit…
Reprinted courtesy of
Marissa L. Downs, Laurie & Brennan, LLP and
Jennifer M. Kanady, FAC Services, LLC
Ms. Downs may be contacted at mdowns@lauriebrennan.com
Ms. Kanady may be contacted at JKanady@facfin.com
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Products Liability Law – Application of Economic Loss Rule
April 02, 2024 —
David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal UpdatesWhen 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.
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David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris, P.A.Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at
dma@kirwinnorris.com
The Johnstown Dam Failure, as Seen in the Pages of ENR in 1889
April 08, 2024 —
Scott Lewis - Engineering News-RecordThe small headline of the Engineering News article shown here belies the gravity of the disaster: the deadliest dam failure in U.S. history. The South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania was a 72-ft-tall, 931-ft long earth and rockfill structure. After a stop-and-start construction process over a dozen years, it was completed in 1853. The dam went through several changes of ownership and was repaired inadequately. Fish screens were installed that obstructed the spillway and caused water to overtop and erode the structure. This mass of water uprooted trees, rocks, houses, rail cars and animals as it thundered down the valley before smashing into a stone railway embankment. Fires ignited by wrecked locomotives burned for three days. The death toll was 2,208.
Reprinted courtesy of
Scott Lewis, Engineering News-Record
Mr. Lewis may be contacted at lewisw@enr.com
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White and Williams Celebrates 125th Anniversary
March 04, 2024 —
White and Williams LLPWhite and Williams LLP, a global-reaching law firm headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, is celebrating its 125th Anniversary. Since its founding in 1899, the Firm has grown to two hundred lawyers with offices in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania.
“We are proud to celebrate our 125th anniversary. We are grateful to all of our clients for the trust that they place in our firm to handle their important litigation and transactional matters. The partnership we enjoy with our clients is special and a source of great pride to all of us at White and Williams. We are deeply committed to the success of our clients' goals and objectives,” stated Tim Davis, Managing Partner. “We look forward to celebrating this historic milestone with our clients, attorneys, staff and alumni throughout 2024,” added Davis.
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White and Williams LLP
Building 47 Bridges in Two Years
December 23, 2023 —
Dan Sopczak - Construction ExecutiveEvery construction project has its challenges, but some truly push the boundaries of what is achievable in the heavy civil industry. When the Indiana Department of Transportation sought to modernize its I-65/I-70 North Split Interchange in Indianapolis, Indiana, its request for proposals included building 47 new bridges and rehabilitating six additional bridges on an ambitious two-year timeline—905 days to substantial completion.
“Three design-build teams responded to the RFQ, and the same three teams responded to the RFP,” according to INDOT Strategic Communications Director Natalie Garrett. “Proposals were scored and evaluated using the best-value evaluation process defined by INDOT. The score was a combination of a technical proposal score and a price score.”
Reprinted courtesy of
Dan Sopczak, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved.
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Understanding California’s Pure Comparative Negligence Law
November 13, 2023 —
Yaron Shaham - Kahana FeldIn order for a plaintiff to prove a defendant is negligent, the plaintiff must prove the defendant (1) owed a duty to plaintiff, (2) breached that duty, (3) the breach was the actual and proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury, and (4) the resulting monetary damage. However, for both plaintiffs and defendants it is not an all or nothing game in California. This is because California is a pure Comparative Negligence state.
California’s Comparative Negligence law provides that even if a plaintiff is deemed 99% at fault, the plaintiff can still recover 1% in damages from a defendant. Thus, even if a plaintiff is deemed to be more than 50% (or even 99%) at fault for the incident, the plaintiff could still recover some monetary amount, or the defendant will still have to pay plaintiff, depending on how you see it. In most instances, a jury decides what percentage of fault to assign to each party.
Just as a plaintiff must prove he/she/its negligence case against a defendant, if the defendant claims plaintiff was partially responsible for the incident, the defendant must prove plaintiff was also negligent and said negligence contributed to plaintiff’s injuries. The total amount of monetary responsibility distributed among all defendants and plaintiffs must equal 100%. As crazy as it may sound, a plaintiff found to be 99.9% at fault, is still entitled to recover 0.01% from a defendant in California.
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Yaron Shaham, Kahana FeldMr. Shaham may be contacted at
yshaham@kahanafeld.com
What a Difference a Day Makes: Mississippi’s Discovery Rule
November 16, 2023 —
William L. Doerler - The Subrogation StrategistThe discovery rule applies to latent injuries, such that the statute of limitations does not begin to run until the plaintiff knows of or should have known of the injury. In Western World Ins. Group v. KC Welding, LLC, No. 2022-CA-00527-SCT, 2023 Miss. LEXIS 278 (KC Welding), a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court of Mississippi (Supreme Court) affirmed the trial court’s ruling that Western World Insurance Group (Insurer) filed its lawsuit one day late. Thus, the statute of limitations barred Insurer’s lawsuit.
In KC Welding, on July 12, 2018, KC Welding, LLC (KC Welding) sent an employee to Sunbelt Shavings, LLC (Sunbelt) to repair the door of a box containing wood chips. Sunbelt’s employees discovered that KC Welding employees were welding a storage bin that had not been emptied of wood chips and Sunbelt’s employees asked KC Welding’s employees to leave. After that, Sunbelt’s employees attempted to soak the area with water. Later than night, a fire started on Sunbelt’s property, apparently as the result of smoldering wood shavings, a fire that was extinguished on July 13, 2018.
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William L. Doerler, White and Williams LLPMr. Doerler may be contacted at
doerlerw@whiteandwilliams.com