Building and Construction - sue for damages before failure?

Author

sue for damages before failure?

marson

2006-05-10, 11:21 pm

OK, say a woman hires a locally renowned architect to "remodel" an old
house---basically replacing all the walls and roofs with new piece by
piece (close to the lake so county zoning will not allow a tear down
and rebuild.) its an old foundation, but on well drained sand so it
is dry, basically plumb and square, and no major cracks and no
settling. say six years later her relationship with said architect
goes sour and she hires a fancy engineer to come in and say the
foundation is inadequete and has to be replaced. for example, there
are inadequete footings, no core filling, no bond beam, no treated
mudsill, etc. but it has not cracked or moved and appears the same as
when the remodel was startedt 6 or 7 years ago.

it probably goes without saying that if you looked up "customer from
hell" in the dictionary, this woman's picture would be on it!

my question: can she collect damages because she has an engineer who
claims the foundation is going to fail? predictably, the architects
engineer found the opposite. it seems to me, if she has a case, then
doesn't that mean that you can't remodel a house unless it meets modern
codes? what do you guys think?

James

2006-05-11, 12:21 am

I cannot answer your questions about what the various experts might say, but
my first consideration would be the Statute Of Limitations. It differs from
state to state, but in many states it would not be over five years. She
cannot sue beyond the Limitations period of your state.

Good luck !!

--james--

RicodJour

2006-05-11, 12:21 am

marson wrote:
> OK, say a woman hires a locally renowned architect to "remodel" an old
> house---basically replacing all the walls and roofs with new piece by
> piece (close to the lake so county zoning will not allow a tear down
> and rebuild.) its an old foundation, but on well drained sand so it
> is dry, basically plumb and square, and no major cracks and no
> settling. say six years later her relationship with said architect
> goes sour and she hires a fancy engineer to come in and say the
> foundation is inadequete and has to be replaced. for example, there
> are inadequete footings, no core filling, no bond beam, no treated
> mudsill, etc. but it has not cracked or moved and appears the same as
> when the remodel was startedt 6 or 7 years ago.
>
> it probably goes without saying that if you looked up "customer from
> hell" in the dictionary, this woman's picture would be on it!
>
> my question: can she collect damages because she has an engineer who
> claims the foundation is going to fail? predictably, the architects
> engineer found the opposite. it seems to me, if she has a case, then
> doesn't that mean that you can't remodel a house unless it meets modern
> codes? what do you guys think?

I think I'm glad I didn't do work for her.

In general, if you don't have damages, you don't have a suit for
damages. major obstacle. The suit would have to be for negligence.
If the architect used due care and has either his own or an engineer's
notes on the status of the existing foundation being adequate, there
probably isn't much of a case. The building department's plan review
and inspection(s) also had their chance to pick up any suspected
deficiencies, and require underpinning or other modifications to bring
the foundation up to the current code. That does not mean that a
nuisance suit won't be brought. You know, pay me to go away.

Basically, every building will fail eventually. Predicting when is the
trick. If there's been no change in the foundation 6 years down the
road, it's unlikely that there will be major problems from here on out.

That being said, from your description of how the work proceeded, it
seems the architect decided to leave well enough alone. Funny thing,
even though that is usually a good course to steer, that may not be
what was required of him with respect to improvements to the
foundation.

So why did the woman and the architect have a falling out? Did he pull
a Frank Lloyd Wright and sleep with the client?

R

marson

2006-05-11, 9:21 am

thanks for your words of wisdom. yeah, every building is going to fail
eventually.

why did she have a falling out with her architect? that is a good
question. i and my partner were the contractor on the original
remodel, until we walked off the job. she took us to arbitration
over the roof...we won

. at that time she worshipped the ground the
architect walked on. she doesn't want to face us in court again---we
know too much about her dirty laundry. (we will be witnesses for the
defense, though).

this was in a rural area with no active building inspection or plan
review. basically bring a crayon sketch to zoning to show you have met
your setbacks, etc. and go and do what you want.

i guess a lesson learned here---when an engineer overbuilds something,
it's the lawsuit happy people that are the reason.

Bob Morrison

2006-05-11, 11:21 am

In a previous post marson wrote...
> my question: can she collect damages because she has an engineer who
> claims the foundation is going to fail? predictably, the architects
> engineer found the opposite. it seems to me, if she has a case, then
> doesn't that mean that you can't remodel a house unless it meets modern
> codes? what do you guys think?
>

Rico is correct when he says there must be "actual" damages (not
speculative damages) for a claim to be successful.

In my opinion this is a situation where both the woman and her attorney
should be charged with extortion. There should be no claim. They are
using the legal system to try to extort money from the architect. If the
judge had any sense he would have thrown the suit out of court before the
ink on the paperwork was dry.

--
Bob Morrison, PE, SE
R L Morrison Engineering Co
Structural & Civil Engineering
Poulsbo WA
bob at rlmorrisonengr dot com

Andy Asberry

2006-05-11, 8:21 pm

On Wed, 10 May 2006 22:27:26 -0400, "James" <jnipperxxx@nospamfdn.com>
wrote:

>I cannot answer your questions about what the various experts might say, but
>my first consideration would be the Statute Of Limitations. It differs from
>state to state, but in many states it would not be over five years. She
>cannot sue beyond the Limitations period of your state.
>
>Good luck !!
>
>--james--
>
Some of those SOL start when the plaintiff knew or should have known
of the damages.

--Andy Asberry recommends NewsGuy--

James

2006-05-11, 11:21 pm

Yes that is true, but here, it appears there are no damages, just
speculation.

--James--

>
Some of those SOL start when the plaintiff knew or should have known
of the damages.

bill allemann

2006-05-12, 6:21 pm

But your common sense may be futile against a well run parasite operation
("the law").

Bill

"James" <jnipperxxx@nospamfdn.com> wrote in message
news:pJWdnRt3BqYudf7ZnZ2dnUVZ_vqdnZ2d@comcast.com...
> Yes that is true, but here, it appears there are no damages, just
> speculation.
>
>
> --James--
>
>
>
>
>
> Some of those SOL start when the plaintiff knew or should have known
> of the damages.
>
>

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