By Bryce C. Reback, Attorney* The construction project hierarchy is familiar and well established. The owner hires the general contractor, and in turn the contractor hires subcontractors. In the unfortunate event that a legally actionable incident occurs there is plenty of settled law as to who can be held [...]
By Francis D. McWilliams IV, Senior Associate Due to the global pandemic and recent spike in COVID-19 cases, it’s anyone’s guess when Texas jury trials will resume. Arbitration, however, is moving forward virtually thanks to the array of virtual platforms available to the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”). I recently [...]
By Stephen A. Dwyer, Attorney For many years, practitioners have used Section 18.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code as a strong weapon in their arsenal for proving damages. The statute works to allow a claimant to essentially prove up damages prior to trial by simply serving [...]
By Lawrence J. West, Partner and Allegra S. Melton, Associate Attorney I. Introduction As the Texas Supreme Court pointed out in LAN v. Eby[1], construction cases are particularly well suited for the application of the economic loss rule because construction projects operate by agreement and the parties are in [...]
By Anam R. Fazli, Associate Attorney COVID-19 continues to impact the construction industry. Contractors and owners are realizing that many projects will be delayed for months- and time is money. The ultimate question is: who is liable for delay costs? The answer is in the written agreement. Provisions addressing [...]
By Francis D. McWilliams, Senior Associate Attorney and Anam R. Fazli, Associate Attorney Just over a century ago, a new strain of influenza arose and quickly spread throughout the world. This new illness, the Spanish flu, quickly reached the level of a worldwide pandemic in the early twentieth century. [...]
By Francis D. McWilliams, Senior Associate Attorney If you are involved in the construction industry, you are familiar with the challenge of staying on schedule. On every project, construction contractors perform a balancing act between completing their scope of work on time, in a good and [...]