Construction Owners & Builders Law Blog

MSNBC reports today Zurich Financial Services and St. Paul Travelers Cos. are in merger talks.

"This story is about dirt," said Thomas W. Prewitt, the Dean of the Mississippi construction law bar, "It's a story about dirt wetted by the blood of friendship broken and packed by orders of hurry and get it done and I'll pay you later."

The Tennessee Business Litigation Law blog points to an article by a defense attorney about how the lower courts are applying the Supreme Court's decision in State Farm v. Campbell on the constitutional limits of punitive damages awards.

The Third Circuit held last week a surety may recover indemnity from the owner of a subcontractor it bonded for attorneys fees the surety incurred in defeating a performance bond claim even though no surety relationship ever existed between the surety and the bond claimant.

Construction lawyers may have to rethink their reading of the widely used AIA performance bond form as a result of a decision earlier this year by the Washington Court of Appeals.