On April 15, 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would amend its current bid protest regulations, codified at 4 C.F.R. Part 21. The proposed rule adds a degree of formality to the protest process, but overall the rule mainly codifies or…
In False Claims Act “Implied Certification” Update: Supreme Court Oral Argument Forecasts Continued Vitality of Controversial Doctrine, we, along with our colleague Danielle Vrabie, report on the recent oral argument before SCOTUS, in Universal Health Services v. United States ex rel. Escobar, No. 15-7, a case expected to resolve the current…
In New York High Court Gives the Bronx Cheer to Insurers’ Pro Rata Allocation and Exhaustion Arguments, Pillsbury attorney Benjamin D. Tievsky discusses New York State Court of Appeals’ decision in In re Viking Pump, Inc. The Court of Appeals accepted two certified questions from the Delaware Supreme Court. As noted…
Roughly two weeks before annual National Stand-Down Week (May 2-6), New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department, in Vitale v. Astoria Energy II, LLC, affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of a worker’s personal injury claim resulting from a fall at a construction site. Specifically, the Appellate Division held that Vitale failed to create an…
Join in the National Safety Stand-Down May 2-6, 2016. The purpose of the stand-down is to raise awareness about preventing fall hazards in the construction industry. Fatalities caused by falls from elevation continue to be a leading cause of death for or serious injury to construction workers. The U.S. Department of Labor,…
California Assembly Bill 2699 (Gonzalez) is a bill to watch if you are a home improvement contractor that installs solar energy systems or, for that matter, a contractor in California. AB 2699 would, among other things, require the Contractors State License Board (CSLB) to develop a “solar energy system disclosure document”…
In late April, U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Goldsmith, in Concerned Pastors for Social Action, et al. v. Nick A. Kouri, et al., issued an interesting Order Regarding Disqualification. During an April 6, 2016 status conference in this matter, the Court to the parties “information regarding its consumption of water…
UPDATE: When Attorneys General Attack II In When Attorneys General Attack, Pillsbury attorneys Sheila McCafferty Harvey, Joseph Jean, Carolina Fornos and Benjamin Tievsky discuss the New York State Office of the Attorney General’s and other jurisdictions’ power to aggressively scrutinize energy companies’ public statements on the subject of climate change. In…
In A Double Standard in Construction Defect Coverage Cases?, I discuss the recent decision of Allied Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Metro North Condominium Associates. This decision highlights why only a minority of courts still hold to the fiction that construction defects cannot give rise to an “occurrence” covered…
On April 19, 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in Wasatch Equality, et al., v. Alta Ski Lifts Company, et al., affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of a lawsuit claiming that the U.S. Forest Service, in routinely approving a permit to operate the Alta Ski area in…