LEED litigation

LEED litigation

Checking In with the Green Real Estate Law Journal

Wed

Feb

I apologize for the interruption, but if you haven't yet checked out the Green Real Estate Law Journal , I'd like to encourage you to do so. Again, the idea behind GRELJ is that it will allow us to delve into some of the thornier legal issues associated with green building in much greater detail than here at gbNYC, where our focus will continue to be projects, deals, and other news items of interest to the New York City green building community. Although we won't be posting with the same degree of frequency at GRELJ, much of the utility of the site will come from the discussion in the comments, where we've already seen some really terrific discourse. Nevertheless, it's been a little over a month since GRELJ launched and already we've had some great content, ranging from a dissection of the green building components of the October bailout and the legal aspects of green real estate finance to the first post in a series about green leasing and a critique of the recent CoStar article reviewing exaggerated owner claims of LEED certification.

Shaw Development v. Southern Builders: The Anatomy of America's First Green Building Litigation

Wed

Aug

by Stephen Del Percio

19 comments

We've written extensively here at gbNYC about the potential for litigation arising out of green construction projects. To date the issue has been on the radar screens of numerous industry authors, but real-life application of green legal theory has been relatively difficult to come by outside of a handful of green-related claims reported by insurance carriers. However, a (relatively) recent lawsuit that was filed on the eastern shore of Maryland demonstrates that green building risk is real- particularly in light of rapidly increasing regulatory activity at the state and local levels. The suit suggests the critical importance of clear contract language for each stakeholder on a green construction project and posits that the alternative could be massive exposure to unanticipated liability for every project participant.

Background to the Lawsuit

Need for Green Counsel Becoming Increasingly Salient as Green Claims are Brought Against Design Professionals

Tue

Jun

by Stephen Del Percio

2 comments

I’ve written before about the potential for design professionals to unwittingly expose themselves to unanticipated risks on green construction projects. In a presentation at last month’s 2007 AIA National Convention in San Antonio, Frank Musica, an attorney with a Maryland-based insurance company, provided an overview of twenty-one actual “green claims” brought against engineers and architects. A copy of his PowerPoint presentation is available for download here.