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DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Decision from Hawaii Supreme Court Amplifies Reasoning for its Prior Order in Maui Fire Cases

March 25, 2025 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
Following its order dated February 10, 2025, the Hawaii Supreme Court issued its full opinion, explaining its answers to the reserved questions addressed in the order. In the Matter of the Petition for the Coordination of Maui Fire Cases, Haw Sup. Ct., SCRQ-24-0000602 (March 17, 2025) [Prior post on order here]. The global settlement reached by the individual and class plaintiffs and defendants required, as a condition precedent, either a release by insurance carriers of all subrogation claims against the defendants, or a final, unappealable order and judgment that the insurers' exclusive remedy for all subrogation claims would be a lien against the settlement under Haw. Rev. Stat. 663-10. Mediation between the individual action plaintiffs, consolidated class plaintiffs, defendants, and subrogation insurers resulted in a settlement term sheet signed by all parties except the subrogation insurers. The term sheet contemplated a global settlement that resolved all claims against the defendants. The term sheet also required an agreement or judgment resolving the subrogating insurers' claims against the defendants as a condition precedent to the proposed settlement. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

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Five Kahana Feld Attorneys Selected to 2025 Southern California Super Lawyers List

March 04, 2025 — Linda Carter - Kahana Feld
Kahana Feld is pleased to announce that partners Avi Attal, Ron Brand, Jason Feld, Amir Kahana, and Sharon Oh-Kubisch were selected to the 2025 Southern California Super Lawyers list. Avi Attal is co-chair of Kahana Feld’s Labor & Employment Counseling and Litigation Group and trial counsel for the firm’s General Liability Group. An experienced trial lawyer, Attal has represented clients through every part of the employment dispute process, including compliance consultations, pre-litigation investigations, DFEH & EEOC investigations, worker compensation disputes, Department of Industrial Relations hearings, mediations, binding arbitrations, bench trials, jury trials, and appeals. Ron Brand is co-chair of Kahana Feld’s Labor & Employment Counseling and Litigation Group, where he provides legal guidance and representation to employers in all aspects of labor and employment law, including defense against federal and state-based wrongful termination, retaliation, harassment, discrimination, wage and hour, whistleblower, defamation, breach of contract, fraudulent inducement, and other similar claims. He also provides preventive counseling and advice to employers on a wide variety of human resources and personnel issues. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Linda Carter, Kahana Feld
Ms. Carter may be contacted at lcarter@kahanafeld.com

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The Evolution of Construction Jobsite Safety: Lessons From the Field

May 19, 2025 — Milwaukee Tool - Construction Executive
Each year, Construction Safety Week offers the construction industry an opportunity to pause and refocus on the most important goal: ensuring every worker returns home safely. Mike Spensieri, who leads jobsite safety initiatives at Milwaukee Tool, shared observations from the field about how safety engagement is evolving—and where it needs to go next. BROADENING THE CONVERSATION AROUND SAFETY Spensieri’s work spans personal protective equipment and safer tool usage practices. Throughout the year, his team works with contractors and safety directors to support jobsite safety programs across the country. “During Safety Week, we focus more directly on tradespeople themselves,” he explained. “We meet crews where they are—from small sites to megaprojects—and talk about real-world practices: everything from ergonomic tool use to OSHA dust regulations.” Reprinted courtesy of Milwaukee Tool, Construction Executive, a publication of Associated Builders and Contractors. All rights reserved. Read the full story...

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Suit Limitation Provisions in New York

January 28, 2025 — Bill Wilson - Construction Law Zone
New York law generally enforces a contractual suit limitation that specifies a “reasonable” period of time (usually shorter than the applicable statute of limitations) within which an action must be commenced. The contractual suit limitation needs to be fair and reasonable, given the circumstances of each particular case. The New York Court of Appeals recently examined this precedent in the context of an insurance policy enforcing an insurance contract’s two-year suit limitation period in Farage v. Associated Insurance Management Corp., 2024 N.Y. Slip Op. 05875 (Nov. 26, 2024). In Farage, a Staten Island multi-unit apartment building was damaged in a fire. The plaintiff owner filed its full repair claim for damages with its insurer six years after the fire and four years after the expiration of the contractual limitation period. The insurer denied the claim. The plaintiff filed suit for breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith fair dealing. The insurer moved to dismiss the action based on the two-year limitation provision in the insurance contract. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Bill Wilson, Robinson & Cole LLP
Mr. Wilson may be contacted at wwilson@rc.com

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Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should. The “Retained Control” Exception to the Privette Doctrine

April 29, 2025 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
Eating an entire bag of “family” sized potato chips in one sitting. Guilty. Binge watching the entire new season of Black Mirror over a weekend. Guilty. Eating an entire bag of “family” sized potato chips in one sitting, while binge watching the entire new season of Black Mirror over a weekend, because, “hey” I’m finally an empty nester, and can do what I like. Guilty. As they say though, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. The beauty of this adage is that it has broad applicability to a cornucopia of situations, from empty nesters who, with the freedom of having the kids out of the house, feel that they can do anything they dang well please; to kids doing rather bone-headed things like jumping on a moving train (yes, guilty); and, as it turns out, can even apply in some cases to construction workers. In Bowen v. Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company, Inc., 103 Cal.App.5th 759 (2024), the First District Court of Appeal examined whether an employee of a subcontractor who was injured while standing on a ladder that slipped could bring a claim against the general contractor under an exception to the Privette doctrine which limits a hirer’s liability for on-the-job injuries sustained by an independent contractor or its workers. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

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Los Angeles Wildfires Will Cause Significant Insured Losses, Ranking Amongst the Most Destructive in California's History

January 14, 2025 — Morningstar DBRS
Wildfires currently burning in the Pacific Palisades, Eaton, Hurst and other Los Angeles neighborhoods will cause significant losses for the insurance industry, in Morningstar DBRS’ view. The fires have already burned more than 1,100 homes and threaten more than 28,000 additional structures, according to local fire officials. Preliminary estimates point to total insured losses in excess of $8 billion depending on the final number of properties being affected by the wildfires. By way of comparison, the 2018 Woolsey Fire, which destroyed 1,643 structures just north of Los Angeles, caused more than $6 billion in property damages at that time. Morningstar DBRS expects the ongoing wildfires to have a negative but manageable impact on major property insurers active in the Californian market, with the impact somewhat mitigated by their use of reinsurance and their high degree of diversification. Similarly, losses should be manageable for the global reinsurance industry and not affect their credit profiles. While leading U.S. property insurers are in good financial condition, the California property insurance market has been challenging because of high wildfire and other natural catastrophe risks combined with regulatory restrictions on coverage and pricing, leading many insurers to re-think their product offering, including an outright exit from the market. For example, market leaders such as State Farm and Allstate started reducing their exposure to the California market beginning 2022-2023. It is therefore possible that a larger than usual portion of the losses caused by the wildfires will be uninsured or may be covered under the California FAIR Plan, which is designed to provide fire coverage up to $3 million per home and spread the risk across the industry when it is not available from traditional carriers. This event reinforces the need for adequate rate increases on home insurance in California, based on forward-looking pricing and catastrophe modelling, as well as for additional fire prevention and mitigation initiatives. However, property insurance affordability is likely to remain a challenge in the state going forward, with many property owners opting to remain uninsured or under-insured because of the high costs.

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Hawaii Supreme Court Paves the Way for Maui Fire Settlement to Proceed

February 25, 2025 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The settlement reached in the Maui fire cases appears to be a step closer to becoming a reality after the Hawaii Supreme Court issued its Order answering three reserved questions posed by the circuit court. In the Matter of the Petition for the Coordination of Maui Fire Cases, SCRQ-24-0000602 (Order Feb. 10, 2025). The Order is here. Wild fires destroyed the Maui town of Lahaina on August 8, 2023. Several lawsuits were filed against various entities allegedly responsible for the catastrophic destruction left by the fires. The various lawsuits were consolidated within a Special Proceeding by the circuit court. The cases went to mediation and a global settlement was reached on August 2, 2024. The terms provided for payment by the defendants of $4.036 billion to the plaintiffs. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

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Preparing for the Threat of New Tariffs: Three Clauses to Look for in Your Federal Construction Contracts

March 18, 2025 — Abby Bello Salinas & Michael A. Branca - Peckar & Abramson, P.C.
The Trump administration’s imposition of new tariffs is anticipated to have large-scale effects on costs in the construction industry. This article focuses on three important clauses in direct federal contracting that dictate contractors’ rights and responsibilities when it comes to price escalation, increased costs, and taxes imposed after contract execution. P&A has previously provided similar insights in the context of private contracts here and here. Newly Imposed Tariffs On February 1, 2025, the Trump administration issued executive orders imposing 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods, a 10 percent tariff on imports from China, and a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy resources. Two days after the announcement, President Trump paused the tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports for one month to conduct negotiations with these ally nations. The tariff on Chinese imports went into effect on Tuesday, February 4, 2025. In response, China announced it was implementing counter-tariffs against the United States, including a 15% tariff on coal and liquified natural gas products, as well as a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery, and large-engine cars exported from the United States to China. Reprinted courtesy of Abby Bello Salinas, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. and Michael A. Branca, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. Ms. Salinas may be contacted at asalinas@pecklaw.com Mr. Branca may be contacted at mbranca@pecklaw.com Read the full story...

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