Washington Construction Law Blog

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