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The Connecticut Appellate Court recently provided guidance on what does not constitute property damage under a typical contractor’s Commercial General Liability (CGL) insurance policy in Westchester Modular Homes of Fairfield County, Inc. v. Arbella Protection Ins. Co., 224 Conn App. 526 (2024). In this case, the contractor defended construction defect claims brought by an…

Below is an excerpt of an article published in the Winter 2023 issue of CONNstruction magazine, the quarterly publication of the Connecticut Construction Industries Association.

After several decades, Governor Ned Lamont signed a bill into law, effective July 1, 2023, An Act Concerning Liability for False and Fraudulent Claims, Public Act No. 23-129, eliminating language that…

Below is an excerpt of an article published in High Profile on April 4, 2023

After a public hearing held on March 6, House Bill No. 6826, An Act Concerning Liability for False and Fraudulent Claims was voted out of committee by a wide margin, and then added to the House Calendar on March 28. This…

Effective October 1, 2022, Connecticut adopted new State Building, Fire Safety, and Fire Prevention codes.  The new codes include 12 international and national model codes.  The State Building Code applies to most buildings and other structures newly-constructed, altered, added to, or undergoing a change in use.  The new codes apply to projects for which a…

While you may not have heard the term “slaughter clauses” to describe the provisions of a construction contract before, the metaphor makes sense when one considers the provisions to which the Connecticut Superior Court recently applied the phrase. In the recent case of Electrical Contractors, Inc. v. Lawrence Brunoili, Inc., et al., Docket No: X-07 HHD CV-20-6129731, the Superior Court considered many subcontractors’ least favorite contract provisions – those that impose limits on a subcontractor’s right to recover money, like strict notice provisions, payment limitations, and damages restrictions.
Continue Reading Connecticut Superior Court Holds That “Slaughter Clauses” Cannot be Added to Public Works Subcontracts Under Connecticut General Statutes § 4b-96

On July 24th, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed Executive Order No. 7JJJ, which creates a rebuttable presumption that all employees who worked on site and tested positive for COVID-19 during the first three months of the pandemic contracted the disease while on the job, giving employees a presumptive claim to workers’ compensation coverage. Connecticut follows suit with states such as Arkansas and California in taking executive order action to make it easier for pandemic workers to access workers’ compensation benefits.
Continue Reading Governor Lamont Issues Executive Order Allowing Pandemic Workers Easier Access to Workers’ Compensation Benefits

Robinson+Cole’s Construction Group hosted its fourth— but first ever virtual — Construction Industry Roundtable on July 14, 2020. Representatives of major design and construction industry organizations and stakeholders in the Northeast were in attendance to discuss the state of the regional market and to look ahead for trends to watch for 2021.
Continue Reading Robinson+Cole Hosts Fourth Construction Industry Roundtable

Changes are made to the scope of work on construction projects every day. In some cases, the contract party being asked to accept these changes is reluctant to do so, viewing the changes to be so substantial as to result in a scope of work radically and materially different than what it originally agreed to perform. Faced with these circumstances, the decision to refuse to perform the extra work and walk away from the project can be a tempting one.

The “cardinal change doctrine” is a tool available to address these situations. The doctrine provides that, when changes are made to a contract which are so disproportionate to the original scope of a contractor’s work that they constitute an abandonment of the original agreement by the other party, the contractor is relieved of further performance obligations.
Continue Reading Connecticut Appellate Court Recognizes Cardinal Change Doctrine for the First Time

As we began to describe on March 18, the economic impacts of the ongoing coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic on the construction industry are becoming more severe as the pandemic continues and spreads. Substantial uncertainty remains, however – as of the date of this post, the “peak” of the pandemic in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts is expected to occur (depending on which reports you read) in mid-April, late-April or May, respectively. It appears increasingly likely that proactive, protective measures in these states, along with their restrictive effects on the economy and construction activity, will continue through the end of April and into May.
Continue Reading Ongoing Impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Construction Projects in Major Markets