Claims Retrospective: Fee Disputes Often Lead to Retaliatory Actions Against Engineers
In Claims onRead moreWaiting for payment for services rendered can quickly become frustrating if the client is slow to pay, or never sends payment at all. Choosing to take a client to court for non-payment can lead to other challenging issues that should be considered.
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Litigation Holds: Engineers May Have a Duty to Preserve Documents and Other Potential Evidence Prior to the Initiation of a Lawsuit
Read moreCompliance with a "litigation hold" generally means preservation of certain documents which may be relevant to a lawsuit. When a litigation hold is in place, parties must suspend their routine destruction of documents and preserve all documents for examination by another party.
Professional Corporations Do Not Always Protect Licensed Engineers From Liability
Read moreOne of the purposes of creating a corporate entity is to limit the liability of those individuals involved with the corporation. Engineers often believe the professional corporation will protect them from liability, in other words, the corporation is liable, not the individual. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
Claims Retrospective: Identify and Document the Work You’re Hired to Do—and Not Do
Read moreIt is not unusual to discover problems outside a project's scope of work that may adversely affect the outcome, especially when the project involves an aging building or the property around it. Nor is it uncommon to find clients who do not wish to pay for remedying these "other" problems.
Jurisdictions Where the Economic Loss Doctrine Bars Extra-Contractual Claims Highlight the Importance of Well-Drafted Contracts
Read moreThe economic loss doctrine is the legal principle that economic loss may not be recovered under a negligence or tort theory. “Economic loss” has been defined as damages for inadequate value, cost of repair and replacement of a defective product, or the consequent loss of profits, as well as the loss of value of the product due to its inferior quality.
Claims Retrospective: Subrogation Demystified
Read moreMeticulous Engineer was hired to do the calculations for the demolition plans in connection with the renovation of Old Warehouse. The drawings indicated that part of Old Warehouse was to be demolished and a small addition was to be added to the remaining part of Old Warehouse.
Claim Retrospective: Clients’ Unauthorized Use of Plans and Drawings or Seal and Stamp
Read moreUnfortunately, clients commonly use engineers' plans and drawings on subsequent projects without the engineer's permission. Even worse, clients have altered engineers’ plans and drawings before using them in subsequent projects, again without the engineer's approval. Shockingly, clients have even used an engineer's seal and stamp without their authorization.
Construction Observation Duties Do Not Make an Engineer Responsible for On-Site Safety
In Liability onRead moreIt is common for engineers to be named as defendants in lawsuits by construction workers who are injured while working at the construction site. Often, an injured worker’s attorney will name everyone involved in the project and determine who is liable later, or even worse, invent a reason why a party might be liable.
Claim Retrospective: The Significance of a Global Settlement in Multi-Party Litigation
Read moreWhy can’t we settle the claim? The answer is often that we cannot obtain a global settlement. Unfortunately, such an answer is not always easy for engineers to understand. As you might imagine, the more parties involved in the litigation, the more difficult it can be to get everyone to agree on a resolution.
What’s an indemnification provision?
Read moreNext time you sign a contract, look closely for language requiring either you or your client to "indemnify" and/or "hold harmless" from claims by third parties. This type of provision is commonly referred to as an indemnity provision. In general, it requires one party to reimburse the other for losses and/or damages incurred as a result of a claim against that other party.
