Huge Snowfall Leads to Wave of Roof Collapses

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Timothy R. Hughes

Washington Snowstorm Lincoln MemorialSo, here in the Washington, DC area we are buried under a couple feet of snow.  You know we have a lot of snow when the Lincoln Memorial steps have been transformed into a good tobogan run.  Unfortunately, so much snow means a ton of dead load placed on roof structures.  There are a number of roof collapses reported around the area.  So far, the major blessing is it appears that none of these events have led to any serious personal injuries.  You can definitely expect that these significant collapse events will trigger equally significant property damage claims, business interruption issues, and perhaps threaten the long-term viability of some businesses.  These events include:

Here is a news report on the Baileys Crossroads roof collapse from WJLA:

With the threat of more snow potentially on the way, the region may not have seen the last of these problems.  Building owners may face some significant hurdles to full recovery, including finding out the limitations of their insurance policies, facing problems with statutes of limitations and/or statutes of repose, and finding that responsible parties are casualties of the current economic crisis and thus are judgment proof.  All of these factors point to a few very important lessons:

  • Know and understand your insurance coverage and its limitations before you have problems
  • When shopping for insurance, evaluate risk and consider not just shopping for the lowest price; you may find that going cheap on insurance ultimately costs you far more
  • Know and understand applicable statutes of limitations and statutes of repose prior to entering into design, construction, or property purchase agreements
  • Factor in the impacts of these time limitation issues when you asses the appropriate levels and types of insurance your purchase
  • Do your homework - conducting detailed inspections prior to purchase and properly evaluating the strength and credentials of your consultants and contractors is an investment of time and money, but it is worth it in the long run rather than face a catastrophic loss in the future

Image by vpickering

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LEEDing to Unintended Consequences - The Ghost of LEED Future

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Timothy R. Hughes

As discussed previously, USGBC has imposed extended reporting requirements as part of its minimum program requirements for LEED. It appears the extended reporting already adopted may only be an initial step. We may see extended reporting requirements backed up by decertification; we may see on-going recertification as a basic part of LEED program structure.  I admit this is speculative, but we may be seeing a shift from LEED using energy modeling towards an actual performance model.

Given the overall goal of improved building performance implicit in LEED, these changes and speculated upon shifts may make sense technically. These changes, however, raise some significant questions regarding risk and responsibility. The ultimate impact on risk, and thus embedded costs, of these changes may vary dramatically from state to state because of each state's underlying legal framework.  Placing these changes into the complex network of construction contracts, contractual allocations of risk, and shared responsibilities raises some interesting observations and questions:

  • States whose limitations period runs based on "injury", such as Virginia, may experience extended limitations triggers where building performance is alleged to be the failure; such results could be different for the various players depending on their roles
  • In damage trigger states, courts may find that "injuries" were suffered far earlier than owners even suffered performance problems, so results in these states are difficult to predict and there could be big winners and losers
  • States with discovery based limitations accrual, such as Maryland and the District of Columbia locally, will present cases with ever longer, potentially plausible, arguments regarding why the owner "reasonably did not know" of a problem for years after occupancy of the project
  • The timing issues presented by extended performance questions mean that contractual agreements on statute of limitations and when they start to run should be focal points of contract negotiations; negotiations regarding extended warranties will be pivotal as well
  • The growing use of LEED certification in various local zoning approvals means decertification may carry unintended consequences. If a project is decertified, is there a possibility that its occupancy permit is threatened?
  • The potential for decertification, or a failure to participate in recertification if that becomes standard, may place commercial landlords at potential for extended risk of breaches of lease agreements depending on the LEED requirements imposed
  • Lease agreements in turn need to be carefully worded so that all parties are on the same page as to exactly what is the yardstick and time frame for complying with LEED related terms

These are just a few of the wrinkles that come the mind when one places an overlay of extended performance obligations into the context of LEED.  We will keep a close watch on these developments moving forward.  We believe that continued movement on the extended performance axis by USGBC will have some serious economic impact on the financial aspects of LEED projects, who "wins" and who "loses" based on these changes, and where bottlenecks may develop on the economic risk side of the equation in reaction to extended performance obligations.

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