Board-Certified In Construction Law By The Florida Bar
This article is part of a series of articles which are designed to identify several key clauses that every party to a construction contract should carefully review and understand prior to entering into a contract. This article will discuss "Concealed Conditions",...
As Tom Hagen said to Sonny Corleone in the Godfather, it "is business, not personal." Words to live by. Often in our line of work, clients want their pound of flesh. They want to prove the other side wrong, and make them pay. We, as lawyers, do well from a financial...
As we have written before, reformation, or correction of mistakes in a contract are not a legal right. While a court can order that a contract be rewritten to take into account some mistakes, the court's ability to do so is limited. The only sure fire way to be...
The law regularly changes, but often, business are not keeping up. Long standing practices that have worked for years may seem difficult to change, but failing to do so can be costly. Whether it is required language to be included within your contracts, or...
In Kritikos v. Anderson, 2013 WL 1748678 (Fla. 4th DCA Apr. 24, 2013), a residential owner of Florida property ("Owner") entered into a contract with a New York architect ("Architect") to design an ocean front home to be built on Jupiter Island, Florida. Owner entered...
Casualty insurance policies have long contained provisions requiring appraisal as to disputes. All too often, property owners would being suit to force their insurer to pay for a covered loss, only to have the case dismissed or stayed until the property owner complied...
As anyone in the construction industry knows, construction contracts are often modified during performance of the project. Often times, this is because something is left out of the design documents, a specified material is not available, or the owner simply changed...
Although in our litigation experience it is not typical for someone to assert that a contractor's contract to "furnish and install" is subject to the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC") governing sales of goods, we have seen lawyers do it. Significant consequences can...
Disputes involving the purchase and sale of materials and equipment will usually be governed by the terms of the purchase and sale agreement and the law applicable to the sale of goods. In this article, aspects of the important "express warranty" are reviewed. ...
It is often repeated that the clear and unambiguous terms of an insurance policy govern, but that if any ambiguities exist, they are resolved in the favor of the insured. It is equally axiomatic that statutes are to be given their clear meaning. Based on those well...