Construction Law Blog

A recent federal case reinforces the need for strict compliance with Miller Act notice requirements to secure recovery on a payment bond.

Communications between a general contractor and sub-sub prove critical in enabling a sub-sub to recover directly from the general contractor in this new Virginia Supreme Court case.

The General Assembly, in its 2020 session, passed new legislation (codified at new Virginia Code §11.4-6 and in amended and reenacted Virginia Code § 40.1-29) that makes Virginia general contractors jointly and severally liable for its subcontractors’ employee wages if the general contractor knew or should have known that the subcontractor was not paying its employees. The new law goes into effect on July 1, 2020.

We discuss how the coronavirus is impacting the construction industry and steps to address these impacts from a contractual basis.

In an article published on Tuesday, February 25, 2020, for Contractor Magazine, Kelly Bundy and Liz Burneson discuss the enforceability of pay-if-paid provisions, alternatives to those provisions, and tips for subcontractors faced with these provisions during the contract negotiation stage and throughout the course of a project.

According to Kelly and Liz, the enforceability of pay-if-paid provisions varies by state. Subcontractors should pay attention to what law applies for each project and whether pay-if-paid provisions are enforceable in that jurisdiction. Kelly and ...

Before this year’s General Assembly Session we wrote about two companion bills that would create a statute of limitations on claims made by the Commonwealth of Virginia on construction and design contracts for state projects. 

Yesterday, in a victory for the Virginia construction and design industries, the House of Delegates bill passed, on a bipartisan and unanimous basis, out of the House Courts of Justice Civil Subcommittee, over opposition voiced by the Virginia Department of General Services (DGS), the Governor’s Office, and VDOT.

On January 12, 2020, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced a final rule to revise—and narrow—the definition of “joint employer” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Whether or not a company is a joint employer is a question that contractors who use staffing agencies, franchise businesses, and firms that outsource services should be asking themselves. In recent years, a growing number of Americans have found themselves in these types of work arrangements. A contractor or franchisor who is determined to be a joint employer can end up on the hook for wages that were ...

The Virginia Department of General Services has issued its General Assembly-mandated report on current Virginia law regarding state construction contracts and the freedom that the Commonwealth currently enjoys from any statutory time limitation on the state’s ability to bring claims against its contractors. 

The 2019 General Assembly bill, supported by the Hirschler Construction Law Team, that would have created a five-year statute of limitations on public projects, hit a roadblock during the 2019 Session when the House Appropriations Committee requested that the Department of General Services (DGS) conduct a study of the bill over the summer and fall of this year. After considering the findings of a recent survey and series of town hall meetings, the DGS is expected to issue a report by December 31, 2019.  In our latest post we discuss the survey findings and our own town hall participation which will impact the DGS’s report.

We have previously written about the Hensel Phelps case here and here and the result in that case arising from the Commonwealth’s complete immunity on state jobs from the normal five-year contract statute of limitations (in Hensel Phelps, a state agency was allowed to bring suit against a general contractor fourteen years after substantial completion). A recent Supreme Court of Virginia case arising in a different context highlights the need for either: (1) the General Assembly to change this law allowing the Commonwealth to bring stale lawsuits; or (2) general contractors to ...