Experience

Defective Construction Claims

• Represented the curtain wall contractor who manufactured and installed the aluminum frame and glass curtain wall system for the Lutheran Brotherhood office town in downtown Minneapolis in connection with the owner's demand for a complete reskinning of the exterior envelope of the building.
  
  
• Represented the general contractor of a 17-story multi-wing health care and residential facility in Minneapolis in connection with the owner's demand to reskin the building as a result of the failure of the exterior wall system, a panelized synthetic plaster system. A senior construction litigator successfully enforced the general contractor's indemnity rights against the curtain wall contractor, and its contribution rights against the manufacturer of the synthetic plaster wall system.
  
  
• National representation of a major general contractor (in the top 40 on the ENR list) in connection with all construction defect claims across the United States. Members of the construction team have represented this contractor across the country for more than 18 years.
  
  
• Represented a general contractor's property insurer in connection with a subrogation action against the false work designer for the cost of equipment lost as a result of the collapse of the Lake Street Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and St. Paul.
  
  
• Representation of curtain wall contractor against general contractor's indemnity claim alleging a failure of the EIFS exterior wall system; establishing that wall system properly performed as a barrier wall system, and that punch-out window design and installation compromised the integrity of the exterior envelop instead.
  
  
• Represented an owner against a general contractor and trade contractors arising out of the failure of a skylight system that extended across the footprint of the building.
  
  
• Defense of general contractor and prosecution of general's indemnity agreement with mechanical contractor relating to multiple actions alleging a failure of the HVAC system that rendered the public building inhabitable; successfully establish that the interior IAQ problems were unrelated to the construction of the building, and instead were caused by the owner's re-adjustment of the Discharge Air "set-point" temperatures; and successfully enforce general's indemnity rights against mechanical contractor, recovering 98% of its fees generated in the defense of the multiple year litigation.
  
  
• Representation of general contractor, obtaining coverage for defect claims arising out of a $1 million plus lawsuit alleging sick building syndrome in a public building in the southeast United States.
  
  
• Representation of general contractor, obtaining insurance coverage for construction defect claims relating to the failure of the opacifier system of a steel and glass curtain wall system incorporated into a 30-story office tower in the Midwest United States.
  
  
• Multiple representations of general contractors across the United States, obtaining insurance coverage for claims for defective construction, over-coming insurer's insistence that allegations of defective construction are excluded from CGL policy based on the policy's "business risk" exclusions.