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The Legal Intelligencer

Practitioners' Guide to Navigating New Mechanics' Lien Law Amendments

Pennsylvania's Mechanics Lien Law of 1963 was amended in late 2014 to require the commonwealth's Department of General Services to create an internet-based State Construction Notices Directory. As required by the law, the directory went live on Dec. 31, 2016, providing a standardized, statewide, internet-based system for construction notices. This statutory scheme imposes new requirements on project owners, contractors, and subcontractors, compliance with which can drastically affect those parties' rights under the Mechanics Lien Law. Practitioners representing any of the traditional parties in a construction matter should be sure to familiarize themselves with these new provisions, and advise their clients accordingly.
13 minute read

The Legal Intelligencer

Indemnity and Additional Insureds: Tools for Risk Shifting

Construction contracts, because of the nature of the undertakings, the number of parties, and the layered involvement of specialty contractors at various tiers, are complicated and often attract complex and expensive litigation. To deal with this dynamic, construction contracts often contain risk shifting devices that are intended to transfer the potential liability for particular risks that affect the various participants.
8 minute read

The Legal Intelligencer

Construction Injury Litigation: Paving the Road Through Discovery

When conducting discovery in personal injury matters that arise from construction accidents, the discovery requests, like in other matters, dictate the documents received. However, the difference is that with a construction project, there are a number of documents, areas of inquiry, and file materials that are important in an attempt to establish your claims against the owner or various contractors, but if not properly requested, they may not be produced. If the request is too broad (i.e., the construction file), you will be faced with an objection that the request simply seeks every bill, receipt, invoice, subcontract, etc., and many documents that have absolutely nothing to do with the issues in your litigation. If the request is too specific, and if you do not ask for the materials the correct way, you may not receive them (i.e., produce JSAs; response "none"—unbeknownst to the requesting party, the contractor did not use JSAs, they used JHAs (see below)). When pursuing a premises liability case, motor vehicle accident case, a dog bite case, etc., the world of documents is much smaller and less particularized. However, there are a number of areas that should be explored in a construction accident case, depending upon the type of accident. The intent of this article is not to identify every single document, as the requests are case specific. Nevertheless, some documents should be requested in all cases, such as all contracts, subcontracts, scopes of work, change orders, safety manuals, accident reports, and photographs, while keeping in mind there are many, many more materials to request.
15 minute read

New York Law Journal

Donadelle v. Diamantis

Title VII Discrimination Suit Not Dismissed; Termination Plausibly Claimed Pretextual
2 minute read

Daily Report Online

App Use to Plot Day of Roof Hail 'Damage' Key to Insurer's Win

Key to the jury's decision was testimony that a roofer used an app to find the date of a convenient storm to bolster hail-damage claims.
13 minute read

Litigation Daily

The Arbitration Fight You Didn't Know Was Happening—And that Skadden Is Winning

For all the attention being paid these days to mandatory arbitration of consumer financial disputes, there's another unlikely battleground: roof shingles. Seriously.
6 minute read

Daily Business Review

The Boom Is Booming and Home Depot Is Setting Records

Americans are plowing money into their homes at an astonishing rate, new, used and even those not yet built, creating for Home Depot a frenzy of loyal customers.
3 minute read

New York Law Journal

ARS Kabirwala, LP v. EL Paso Kabirwala Cayman Co.

Unjust Enrichment, Implied Covenant Claims Dismissed as Duplicative of Breach Claims
2 minute read

The Recorder

Energy Insurance Mutual Limited v. Ace American Insurance Company

C.A. 1st; A140656 The First Appellate District affirmed a judgment. The court held that where claims of “ordinary, common law negligence”…
6 minute read

The Legal Intelligencer

Cohen v. Ellwood Crankshaft and Mach. Co., PICS Case No. 17-1172 (C.P. Lawrence July 12, 2017) Motto, P.J. (11 pages).

Venue was proper in this personal injury action against two alleged tortfeasors in the county where one of them had an office, and which was also the county where the accident occurred. Where plaintiff did not allege sufficient factual detail about the accident and the parties' employment relationship, the court granted a preliminary objection and allowed plaintiff to amend.
6 minute read

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