Washington Construction Law Blog

If you are a general contractor and your subcontractor does its books & records at the kitchen table rather than a legitimate IRS recognized place of business, be prepared to get hammered by L&I when the sub fails to pay its workers compensation insurance premiums.

 

This procedurally tangled case between Fluor and the structural steel subcontractor Walter on the DOC project in Aberdeen will be of virtually no interest to anyone but the parties themselves, except for the following two kernels:

1. The Court of Appeals recognizes -- and presumably adopts in Washington -- the federal Severin doctrine (a GC who has been fully released of liability from its sub cannot pass-through the sub's claim to the owner); and
2. The Court also applies the old Balfour case (OK, maybe not that old -- decided in 1980) in which the Supreme Court said as a general matter that courts lack the authority to order consolidation of two separate arbitration proceedings.

Copy of opinion also available here Download file

Whatever you think of Gehry's designs -- the EMP, for example -- this suit will be fun to keep an eye on.

Arbitration awards are notoriously difficult to overturn in court because the various arbitration statutes list only narrow grounds for appeal such as arbitrator bias.  But are the parties free to provide for a broader scope of court review by so stipulating in the arbitration contract itself?  Various courts have said various things on the matter, and it will now be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Hall Street v. Mattel case on appeal from the 9th Circuit.  Oral argument was  this week.  Decision in early 2008.

CPARB -- the Capital Projects Advisory Review Board created in 2005 -- has released its suggested guidelines for implementing the new legislation (HB 2010) on public works bidder responsibility.  A copy is available here.

This case is worth checking out the next time you are caught up in a preference battle, especially if you are the general contractor.  Turner was ordered to pay $830,000 to a supplier who itself was required to refund that same amount to the bankruptcy trustee on a preference theory.

Copy of opinion also available here Download file

Throwing its weight behind ConsensusDocs (see our post from October 25), the AGC announces it will not support the AIA's revised General Conditions.

... are available online.