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Policyholders Must Be “Made Whole” Before Insurers Recover Payments From Third Parties
The Washington Supreme Court recently issued a decision strongly reiterating the “made whole” doctrine under Washington law, which provides that an insurer cannot exercise its right of reimbursement from a third party who injured its insured, until...
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Bill Gives Design Build Boost in Public Contracting
Design-build is increasingly showing up in public works projects in the Washington State. This method allows the price to be established based on a conceptual design rather than through the competitive bid process. Offsetting the lack of competitive...
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Condo Lien Gone Wrong: Summary Lien Procedure used Successfully to Challenge Excessive Condo Lien
ServPro filed a single lien on a condo for water damage remediation work in the amount of $183,945.09 but did not allocate proportionally the amount of its billing among the 20 units impacted. This mistake illustrates the difficulties in getting a li...
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Does the Causation-Trigger Wording of an Additional Insured Endorsement Matter?
When two companies agree to work together, they will try to allocate the risk of something going wrong to the company that's in the best position to prevent that from happening. For example, in the construction industry a general contractor will usua...
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Washington Supreme Court Upholds Strict Interpretation of Contractual Notice Provisions: Failure to Immediately Give Notice of Claim a Complete Bar to Recovery
Nova, a public works contractor, filed a claim for breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, based entirely on the City's untimely and repeated rejection of submittals to perform culvert work in Olympia. The Supreme Court held that the c...
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Get Trained on New Requirements for Bidding on Public Works Contracts
Washington’s “responsible bidder” law already imposes significant requirements on contractors bidding on public works contracts: for instance, bidders must obtain certain types of industrial insurance, maintain records of wages and components used in...
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