In Grandview at Riverwalk Port Imperial Condominium Association v. K. Hovnanian at Port Imperial, a Hudson County jury on June 1 awarded a $10 million construction defect verdict against a publicly traded developer and an architectural company.

The plaintiffs, condominium association members, claimed they learned after buying units in a six-story West New York development that the building was not code-compliant—and that the developer's parent company, Hovnanian Enterprises, was aware of it.

The relevant building codes provide for five types of buildings, ranging from the most fire-resistant Type 1—often a skyscraper—to Type 5, which could be a wood-frame house, according to John Cottle of Becker & Poliakoff in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, who represented the plaintiffs, along with Matthew Meyers of the firm's Morristown office, and others at the firm.