Construction Law Today : Construction Lawyer & Attorney : Joshua Glazov : Design Build Contracts, Construction Bankruptcy

The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune's Jim Foti reports in I-35 Bridge Firm Settles Suits on Friday's settlement between Progressive Contractors, Inc. (the "contractor") on one side and State of Minnesota and the disaster survivors on the other. Terms of the settlement, approved Friday by Judge Deborah Hedlund, are confidential.

Kyle Hart, one of the contractor's lawyers, said the company's insurers "tendered the limits of the contractor's liability insurance." Chris Messerly, a lawyer for 103 survivors, suggested that the settlement isn't for a huge amount compared to claims against others with a role in the disaster. Others include the engineers who respectively designed and inspected the bridge: Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc and URS Corp. The state's lawsuits against Jacobs and URS, and URS's countersuit against the state, are still pending.

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Are you're interested the collapse of the I-35 bridge in the Twin Cities and the claims that have followed in its wake? Then if you haven't already, take a look at the Report prepared by the National Transportation Safety Board on the disaster. It's informative, goes into more detail than most of the press coverage, but it's still readable for people like me who aren't engineers (well at least the Abstract and Executive Summary sections at the beginning are).

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Last week Judge Deborah Hedlund hearing lawsuits arising from collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minnesota rendered an order denying an engineer's motion to be dismissed from one of those lawsuits.

The Backstory

The State of Minnesota contracted with Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates, Inc. to design the original bridge in 1962.  Construction of the bridge was complete in 1967.  Then, through a series of post-completion name changes and mergers, the Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. purchased Sverdrup & Parcel. From here on in I'm going to refer to Sverdrup & Parcel, the Jacobs Group, and all of the names in between together as the "original engineer".

Before the collapse, URS Corp. (the "later engineer") and Progressive Contractors, Inc. (the "contractor") were both working on maintenance for the bridge.  After the bridge collapsed, the State and others sued the later engineer and the contractor.  They looked back to the original engineer's design and decided part of the blame also belongs to the original engineer too.  So they sued the original engineer for contribution and indemnification.  Basically, the later engineer alleged that the original engineer was at least partly to blame for the bridge collapse.  And because the original engineer' was partly to blame, the original engineer should reimburse the later engineer and the contractor for what they must respectively pay-out to the State and others. 

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Yesterday, in Minnesota Sues Engineers Alleging Defective Pre-Collapse Inspection and Evaluation of I-35W Bridge we talked about the State of Minnesota's lawsuit against the engineers who inspected and evaluated the I-35W bridge that collapsed two years ago killing 17 people and injuring more than 30. 

Following-up on that post, in the article Companies Sued In Bridge Collapse Gain New Work, the Associated Press reports that despite the disaster, the State of Minnesota has contracted for about another $6.2 million worth of work with URS Corp., the engineering firm that the State alleges in their lawsuit was at least partially responsible for the bridge collapse.

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According to the article Minnesota Sues Engineering Firm, Alleges Faulty Analysis of I-35W Bridge by Bill Salisbury at TwinCities.com, the State of Minnesota is suing for defective inspection and analysis of the I-35W bridge that collapsed two years ago.  The state is suing URS Corp., the engineering firm the state hired to inspect and report on the condition of the bridge.


This past Wednesday the State filed a Complaint Complaint against the engineer in Hennepin County District Court alleging claims for:

• Breach of contract - failure to adequately inspect, analyze, and evaluate the structural condition of the bridge under contracts with the State to provide those services

 

• Negligence - failure to comply with the engineering standard of care in inspecting, analyzing, and evaluating the structural condition of the bridge that, in part, caused the bridge collapse

• Statutory Reimbursement - seeking reimbursement of money the State has paid to collapse survivors out of a special fund established by the Minnesota Legislature

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In a post last week I mentioned that the the Minnesota legislature passed bill HF420 amending amendments to Minnesota's Notice and Opportunity to Repair Law and sent them for Governor Pawlenty to sign.  Kevin Duchschere of the Star Tribune reported in an article this afternoon that the governor vetoed HF420.  It's now back to the legislature to see if they can muster up enough votes to override the governor's veto.

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Since the building boom that started in the mid-1990's, Minnesota, Nevada, and Colorado each enacted Notice and Opportunity to Repair statutes ("NOR Statutes") intended to reduce the volume and expense of residential construction defect litigation.  This past legislative season, legislatures in each of these states considered bills to amend their NOR Statutes.  One passed, one may pass, and the other died in committee.     

Minnesota

The Minnesota Legislature passed a bill (HB420) amending Minnesota's NOR Statute. This bill makes the following changes to Minnesota's NOR Statute:

• Construction contracts must re-state the statutory warranties already imposed under Minnesota's NOR Statute.
• The statutory warranties are non-waiveable.  Regardless of what language there is a construction contract, or other agreement between a contractor and an owner, attempted waivers of these warranties is void.   

The Minnesota Legislature sent this bill to Governor Pawlenty.  If he signs this bill, it will become law on August 1, 2009.
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