Don’t worry. That shaking you feel isn’t an earthquake. It’s the construction of the new Tappan Zee bridge across the Hudson River north of New York. I’m kidding of course. Construction on the $3.9 billion project hasn’t even started yet, but much of the geotechnical work, not to mention the…
OK, this post isn’t about construction. But it is about law–civil procedure, to be precise. Anyone who has been through a trial knows how much persuasiveness expert witnesses can have, particularly with juries, but with judges and arbitrators as well. It’s been 20 years since the U.S. Supreme Court started…
Video animations of construction projects are always fun. But this metamorphosis of Rio de Janeiro is quite amazing. Meanwhile, architects are taking “building skin” to a whole new level – and proposing a building in Dubai that grows its own skin! And over in Mexico, while this building may not…
In a previous post, we reported that the American Society of Civil Engineers (“ASCE”) released its 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. America’s cumulative GPA for infrastructure was a D+. One of the categories in this report focused on ports, which received a C grade. Now a new report goes…
I occasionally give a presentation called “That’s not what I meant!” which is subtitled “Usually the drafter’s precision carries the day, but sometimes the litigator’s creativity trumps it.” Our legal system generates seemingly endless material for this presentation and last week the Eighth Circuit gave us more in Union Electric…
For a visual tour of the construction of New York’s Second Avenue Subway line, the Big Apple’s first major expansion of its subway system since 1932, check out CBS Sunday Morning’s video, NYC’s subway, still under construction. Amidst the obligatory interviews on the surface with planners, engineers, and inconvenienced neighbors,…
The Second Circuit’s recent decision in Scottsdale Insurance Company v. R.I. Pools, Inc., Case No. 11-3529, 2013 WL 1150217 (2d Cir. March 21, 2013) should be welcome news for Connecticut contractors insured under CGL policies with Broad Form Property Damage Coverage, seeking coverage for losses to their work caused by…
Do you really need that progress payment lien release notarized? It’s such a pain in the rear, isnt’ it? Isn’t a signature enough? After all, you don’t get your contracts notarized–well, not most of them. This was the discussion around our water cooler the other day, initiated while some of…
The American Society of Civil Engineers (“ASCE”) has released its 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. The Report Card assigns a letter grade to sixteen major categories of infrastructure – such as bridges, dams, and roads – based on capacity, condition, funding, future need, operation and maintenance, public safety, and…
On March 1, 2013, President Obama ordered the implementation of across-the-board cuts – sequestration – primarily directed to military and domestic discretionary spending because the White House and congressional leaders could not agree to an alternative. The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 2011 requires this sequestration, which…