Warranties provided to project owners are often some of the most-negotiated provisions in a construction contract. What will the warranties cover? How can they be enforced? Perhaps most importantly: how long will they be in force? Arguments regarding one recent construction project in Ohio demonstrate the importance of knowing whether contractual language does, or does
On January 26, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor’s (“Department”) Office of Solicitor (“SOL”) published its FY2023 Enforcement Report (“Enforcement Report”). The report provides an insight into the Department’s labor and workplace safety initiatives and enforcement focus. The messaging in the Enforcement Report is consistent to what Hahn Loeser & Parks LLP has seen and
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At the most basic level, contracts serve to assign, allocate, and mitigate risk. Parties—unsurprisingly—are typically unwilling to adopt greater risk than required, and often look to assign most of the risk to the other contracting party. While understandable, this approach may have unintended costs.
For the most part, the general
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Allocating the Risks and Benefits of Green Construction
Sustainable (or “green”) construction practices and the trend toward green buildings are here to stay, driven not only by federal, state, and local legislation, tax credits, and incentives, but also by consumer, corporate, and shareholder demand. If they haven’t already, owners, architects
When reviewing a contract, how often have you had the following thoughts: “That provision is so one-sided, there’s no way it will be enforced the way it’s written!” Or “I won’t worry about negotiating that provision; a court would never enforce it as written.”
A recent decision from Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals illustrates
Owners and contractors should be knowledgeable in the various contract forms and their associated risks. Among the most common construction forms are 1) lump sum, 2) cost plus a fee and the hybrid, 3) cost plus a fee with a guaranteed maximum price. Each allocates risk differently and has different benefits for the parties.
A lump
Non-compete clauses in employment contracts are subject to a wide variety of state laws that limit their effectiveness, but often leave room for reasonable restrictions when an employee leaves. A proposed new rule from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would bring uniformity to the law – by banning employers from entering into non-compete clauses
Contractors learned many lessons from 2020-2022 on material/labor availability, price escalation, and contractual allocations of risk. Prudent contractors will consider this in contracts moving forward.
Long gone are the days of large projects that are simply private or public. Large projects are multi-layered when it comes to funding. Federal, state, and
In this recent Legal Alert, Greg Thompson and Alayna Bridgett summarize a bill recently signed into law by Ohio Governor DeWine that shortens the statute of limitations for breach of written contract actions from eight years to six and, for oral contracts, from six years to four. The bill goes into effect on June
Construction contracts often include arbitration provisions that require any dispute arising out of a project be resolved through binding arbitration. But who decides whether such a dispute is subject to the arbitration provision? The answer to that question is not always clear, and a recent decision (or refusal to make a decision) by the U.S.