Articles Posted in Construction Contracts

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Amy Skiba, 43, was driving with two children, both 12 years old, when an oncoming driver lost control of his vehicle, crossed the center line, and struck Skiba’s vehicle head-on. Skiba suffered fatal injuries. She was survived by her husband and three children, one of whom is an adult.

Skiba’s adult child and representative for the two minor children sued Eaton Asphalt Paving Co., which completed a resurfacing project on the road approximately two months before this incident.

The Skiba family asserted that the defendant pavement company negligently performed the project by choosing not to mill the road and install a safety wedge as required by its contract with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

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Jefferson City Retirement LLC (“JCR”) appealed from the circuit court’s judgment in favor of Twehous Excavating Inc. on its claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit. JCR contended that the court erred in granting Twehous’s relief on both claims because the claims were mutually exclusive and inconsistent as a matter of law.

However, the Missouri Appellate Court affirmed the judgment, stating that the claims are not mutually exclusive.

In 2013, JCR began building a retirement and assisted living community on property it owned in Jefferson City, Mo. JCR hired Omni Construction Co. Inc. as the general contractor on the project. Omni entered into a subcontract agreement with Twehous to provide excavation work under Omni’s direction.

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Victoria Jeffords sued defendant BP Products North America, the operator of an oil refinery, Fluor Constructors International, the engineering and construction manager and MC Industrial. She claimed that her husband, Donald Jeffords, had been injured when he was employed by Central Rent-a-Crane, which BP contracted with to provide crane services. He fractured both feet and his back when he fell seven feet while on a 13-inch wide catwalk on the crane with no guardrail while checking the crane’s fluid levels.

The U.S. District Court Judge granted summary judgment for BP, Fluor and MC Industrial finding no duty was owed to Jeffords and no breach of any duty existed under the contracts, at common law, or under OSHA.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago affirmed, citing six reasons the defendants breached no duty owed to Jeffords, noting Jeffords could not sue his employer, Central Rent-a-Crane, as he had only a workers’ compensation claim.

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Victoria Metal Processor Co. bought an insurance policy from Nautilus Insurance Co. to provide insurance coverage to Vivify Construction for accidents involving negligence by Victoria for a construction project in which Vivify was the general contractor.

Nautilus refused to cover a lawsuit filed by a Victoria Metal Processor employee, Pablo Vieyra, who fell from a second-story scaffold because of the alleged negligent supervision by Vivify.

There were two “injury to employee” exclusions in the body of the Nautilus Insurance policy that said it didn’t apply to tort claims by the employees of any subcontractors. Vivify appealed from a judgment that concluded that Nautilus Insurance was not obligated to defend Vivify, the general contractor.  It was argued on appeal that the trial court judge erred in choosing not to consider the terms of the subcontract between Vivify and Victoria.

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Plaintiffs Lenny and Tracy Chapman filed a lawsuit against Hiland Partners GP Holdings LLC, et al. who owned and operated a natural gas plant in North Dakota. Missouri Basin offers trucking services to gas companies in North Dakota. Hiland entered into a Master Service Contract (Hiland MSC) with Missouri Basin in 2008 whereby Missouri Basin, as “Contractor,” agreed to perform various services for Hiland.

As part of the agreement, Missouri Basin agreed to “indemnify, defend and save harmless Hiland Group . . . from and against any and all claims, demands, judgments, defense costs, or suits . . . in any way, directly or indirectly, arising out of or related to the performance of this Contract.”  The Hiland MSC also included an Oklahoma choice-of-law provision.

On Oct. 18, 2011, Hiland requested Missouri Basin to remove water from condensation tanks at the Watford plant. Missouri Basin contacted B&B Heavy Haul LLC who sent the plaintiff Lenny Chapman to the gas plant. Chapman arrived shortly after midnight.  He and an employee of Hiland began connecting the tank to the B&B truck that Chapman was driving. An explosion occurred and Chapman was seriously injured.

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Heron Salgado was a construction worker employed by Abel Building & Restoration. He was assigned to work at a job site at 51st Street on a scaffold that was designed, built, erected and maintained by the defendant Designed Equipment Corp. While working at that construction site, he was injured twice.

The first time Salgado was injured was on Jan. 17, 2011 when a heavy bucket fell and struck him.  Then he was injured two days later when he fell into an “opening” in the scaffolding.

Salgado filed a lawsuit against Designed Equipment Corp. in December 2012. Designed tendered its defense of the case, first to its own insurance company and then to Pekin Insurance Co., which was Abel’s insurers, arguing that Abel was an “additional insured” under Abel’s policy of insurance with Pekin.

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Heron Salgado, a construction worker, was employed by Abel Building & Restoration in January 2011 when he was assigned to work at a job site at 51st Street. He was working on a scaffold design that was built, erected and maintained by Designed Equipment Acquisition Corp. While he was working at that site, he was injured twice. Once on Jan. 17, 2011, Salgado was injured when a heavy bucket fell and struck him. Two days later he was injured again when he fell into an “opening” in the scaffolding.

Salgado filed a lawsuit against Designed Equipment in December 2012. Designed tendered its defense for this case first to its own insurance company and then to Pekin Insurance Co. who were Abel’s insurers, maintaining that Abel was an “additional insured” under Abel’s policy with Pekin.

Pekin rejected the tender of defense and filed a complaint seeking declaratory judgment. Pekin first claimed that Designed was not an additional insured under the contractor’s endorsement and also that the lease between Abel and Designed was an “insured contract” and therefore void under the Construction Contract Indemnification for Negligence Act.

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Sandra Gibbs hired the defendant Blu-Sky Industries to do work on a septic tank on her property at 30658 S. Ashland Ave. in Beecher, Ill. The Village of Beecher is located in Chicago-area suburbs in Will County, Ill. On Dec. 8, 2009, Gibbs, 31 years old at the time, stood in her driveway supervising the work as the defendant Blu-Sky Industries’ workers completed the project. She was walking back toward her house when a Blu-Sky employee, Jacob Courtney, began backing up his truck, which was attached to a trailer.

Courtney did not see Gibbs and hit her twice, causing her to fall onto the trailer with a direct blow to her outstretched right arm. The truck continued in reverse with Gibbs halfway on the trailer and halfway on the ground for 10 additional feet before the truck finally stopped.

Gibbs suffered a right shoulder impingement with a partial thickness tear of the supraspinatus tendon in the rotator cuff, requiring injections and eventually surgery that consisted of arthroscopic distal clavicle excision and subacromial decompression. A subacromial decompression of the shoulder is a surgery designed to increase the size of the subacromial, which is designed to reduce the pressure on the muscle. In order to make room, the surgery involves cutting the ligament and shaving away the bone spur on the subacromial bone. This permits the muscle in that space to heal.

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Late in 2002, the developer of 1717 S. Prairie Ave. in Chicago, Ill., retained the defendant Hansen & Hempel Co. to complete the masonry work for a 23-story condominium complex. When the building was nearly finished in March 2004, it started to experience water leakage. The condominium association, Board of Directors of the Prairie District Homes Tower Condominium Association, hired an engineering firm to design and implement a repair that was estimated to cost over $6,500,000.

Because of the report on the defects to the building, the association filed a lawsuit wherein the case was tried to a jury on the sole issue of breach of implied warranty of habitability.

The plaintiff board of directors of the condominium association contended that 90% of the through-wall flashing in dams installed by the defendant masonry company were either missing or installed improperly and claimed that because of those material defects it allowed water to penetrate the inner cavity of the building.

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Robert Lodholtz was seriously injured in 2011 while working at a plant owned by Pulliam Enterprises in Indiana. Lodholtz filed a personal-injury lawsuit against Pulliam in the Indiana state court. Pulliam called on Granite State Insurance Co., its primary liability insurer, along with New Hampshire Insurance Co., to defend and indemnify it against the lawsuit.

Granite State refused to indemnify Pulliam stating that Lodholtz as an employee should pursue his claim for worker’s compensation. Lodholtz disagreed arguing that he was employed by another company while he worked at Pulliam’s plant and therefore had no basis for a worker’s compensation claim.

Pulliam chose not to file an answer to the complaint, so Lodholtz moved for default judgment, which was granted. Lodholtz then agreed with Pulliam not to pursue the default judgment and in return Pulliam assigned to Lodholtz its rights against Granite State. Granite State then moved to intervene in Lodholtz’s lawsuit. The Indiana state court denied the motion to intervene.

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