"The Fallout From a Catastrophic Jobsite Incident," Construction Dive

In an article published on April 2 in Construction Dive, Judah Lifschitz discusses potential legal problems in the aftermath of a catastrophic jobsite incident. “If the delivery method is design-bid-build, and there’s some kind of failure, the owner will be looking at the contractors and subcontractors and [separately] at the designer,” he states. “If [the contract is] design-build…it’s the owner against the team, and that team will be suing each other.” In the event of deaths or injuries, personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits will be aimed at not only the principal players but at smaller project participants as well. Contractors' liability also can increase if it can be proven that company supervisors or other site personnel should have recognized the defect that caused the failure and did nothing. Lifschitz shares that there are multiple parties — subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, inspection companies just to name a few — that will end up being forced to mount legal defenses. For the full article, click here.