In an effort to stimulate the economy, federal and state government agencies are seeking to promote new construction projects. This trend of government involvement in construction projects is likely to continue. When the government is involved, it is important to know whether this involvement causes public contracting laws to apply.
Governmental involvement in a construction
Four Practical Points for Avoiding and Responding to Construction Liens
Step 1: Who’s healthy in 2010?
Within the bounds of the Fair Credit and Reporting Act and any state obligations, it is imperative for both owners and general contractors to understand the financial fortitude of the parties doing the work. If you don’t obtain the
Your project is coming along fine, despite the economy. You’ve weathered the squalls of bids, design changes, agency approval, and credit (mercifully), and now even construction completion is looking good. You can see the finish line through the haze on the horizon, and you’re fairly pleased with how you have pulled everything together with what
Contributor: Louis A. Ferreira
Congress has proposed legislation that would amend the 
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to increase both civil and criminal penalties, expand coverage, and create new obligations for employers. Congress has not acted recently on the bill, named the “Protecting America’s Workers Act," but employers should expect action sometime in the new year.
Willful violations of OSHA that result in the death of a worker would be a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison, while willful violations resulting in serious bodily injury would be a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Currently, the criminal penalty for a willful violations resulting in death is imprisonment for 1 year. There is no criminal penalty under the existing act for a serious bodily injury resulting from a willful violation. In addition, the maximum civil penalties in all OSHA violation categories would increase, and would be adjusted periodically according to the Consumer Price Index.
Oregon-OSHA administers its own regulations for most employers in the state but adopts standards and penalties at least as stringent as federal OSHA. In other words, if federal OSHA standards are changed, these impacts will be enforced in Oregon in short order. Employers should be concerned about the scope of these changes because like most legislation, the devil is in the details of how the law is changed. For instance, a willful violation of an OSHA standard does not necessarily require an intentional decision to violate the regulation. A willful violation is defined to exist where an employer or supervisor “recklessly” disregards the requirements of a regulation. Knowledge of the regulation is usually not required it the employer or supervisor should have known of the regulation or standard.
Additionally, employers would be prohibited from
Despite the explosion of articles, seminars and webinars on green building and development during the last year or so, there is a dearth of information in the development world regarding what project owners and developers who do want to build a green project should actually put in their design and construction contracts.
Here is what I think is important regarding this subject:
General Green Building Certification Goal. The project owner first must decide in general what green building goal it wants to achieve. LEED certification (from the US Green Building Council), at a particular certification level (general, silver, gold, platinum), is an obvious option. But there are other general green building certifications, too, such as Green Globes (Green Building Initiative) and SBTool07 (International Initiative For a Sustainable Built Environment), as examples. The owner should make this basic decision early on, based on good information and analysis and the advice and recommendations of design and green building consultants, as applicable.
Industry-Specific Green Building Certification Goal. Deciding on an overall green building goal such as a LEED certification is not the only certification goal a project owner should consider, however. There also is a growing number of industry-specific certifications that the owner should evaluate, depending on the nature of the project and the owner’s business. For example, there are certifications available for health facilities (Practice Greenhealth), restaurants (Green Restaurant Association) and hotels (Hotel Pure Green). How important an industry-specific certification of this type is to an owner is a question to be addressed at the start of the design process.
Tax and Other Governmental Incentives Goal. Another element of green building goals to be considered is tax and other governmental incentives relating to green building. Particularly in Oregon and under new federal stimulus legislation, there may be tax credits, grants and other public sector incentives for green, sustainable and energy efficient construction that can be of substantial benefit to a project. However, these incentives must be identified as project goals early in a project’s design in order to ensure that the owner is able to take advantage of them.
Making Green Building Goals Explicit. Once an owner has sorted through its optional goals for LEED or other general certification, for industry-specific certification and for tax and other governmental incentives, these goals should be expressly set out in the owner’s design and construction contracts. Otherwise, the owner’s architect and contractor will not have any contractual obligations to achieve the owner’s green building goals. Typical form contracts, including 2007 American Institute of Architects (“AIA”) forms of contract, include minimal references to these kinds of obligations and do not include language in which to make the goals explicit.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has spent more than $3.5 Million investigating sulfur-containing drywall in what has become one of the largest investigations in CPSC history, according to Scott Wolfson, spokesman for the CPSC. And the investigation is not done yet. During a press conference last week, the CPSC announced the release of more than
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, the Oregon Court of Appeals strikes again with another iteration of the “economic loss doctrine” which defines when parties can sue each other in negligence for construction defects. In Abraham v. Henry (September 2, 2009) the Court held that parties to a
The Oregon Court of Appeals recently issued an opinion in Abraham v. T. Henry Construction, Inc., et al., a residential construction defect case, that helps clarify the circumstances under which a contractor may be sued for negligence. The issue of whether a contractor may be sued for negligence, as opposed to breach of contract
Contractors and owners used to the pre-2007 AIA document forms should know that the AIA has revised its most popular forms and that the AIA software no longer supports the older versions. You may still see the older forms in Word or similar formats, but you won’t be seeing the official AIA document that automatically
Are Oregon contractors liable on a per-employee basis for failing to comply with OSHA personal protective equipment (PPE) and training requirements? Under a new administrative order issued by Oregon OSHA, the answer is yes.
Under this order, Oregon OSHA adopted a federal OSHA rule clarifying that employers are liable for violations on a per-employee