Playing Professor for a Day

I had the unique opportunity this past week to lecture at USC at the invitation of Professor Alan Croll. Professor Croll is an attorney and former…

Show Me the Money: The Good Faith Dispute Exception to Prompt Payment Penalties

California has a number of prompt payment penalty statutes on the books. Among them is Civil Code section 8800 which requires project owners on private works…

Just Because You Caused it, Doesn’t Mean You Own It: The Hooker Exception to the Privette Doctrine

We’ve written before about the Privette doctrine, which establishes a presumption that a hirer of an independent contractor delegates to the contractor all responsibility for workplace…

2023 Construction Outlook: Construction Starts Expected to Flatten

There’s a lot to worry about going into 2023 according to Dodge Data & Analytics in its 2023 Construction Industry Outlook: Inflation More oil production cuts…

Payment Bond Surety Entitled to Award of Attorneys’ Fees Although Defended by Principal

For contractors involved in California public works projects the scenario is not uncommon: The general contractor awarded the public works project is required to obtain a…

2023 Construction Law Update

As we approach 2023 we want to wish you and yours a happy holiday season. A total of 1,726 bills were introduced during the second…

PAGA Right of Action Not Applicable to Construction Workers Under Collective Bargaining Agreement

California is one of the most employee-friendly states in the country. From strict hiring laws (don’t think about asking about an applicant’s criminal, credit or even…

The Right to Repair Act Means What it Says and Says What it Means

A rather short case for a short week. In Gerlach v. K. Hovnanian’s Four Seasons at Beaumont, LLC, 82 Cal.App.5th 303 (2022), the 4th District…

A Trivial Case

Construction defect cases leading to physical injury are rarely trivial, at least in the eyes of the injured party, but alas sometimes they are as the…

Violation of Prompt Payment Statutes is Not a Breach of Contract. But That’s Not the Most Interesting Part

While construction projects can get messy, they don’t get much messier than the next case, which, while it involved a fairly limited legal issue – whether…

Independent Contractor v. Employee. The “ABC Test” Does Not Include a Threshold Hiring Entity Test

In 2018, in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, 4 Cal.5th 903 (2018), the California Supreme Court overturned nearly thirty years of jurisprudence governing the manner…

Garret Murai Discusses the Mechanics of Mechanics Liens on Thompson Reuters

Thompson Reuters, which many of us lawyers know through their legal research platform Westlaw, has released a video presentation I gave on the mechanics of mechanics…