California Surveyors Forums

This came to the chapter email list today from the Orange County chapter today and thought I would post the info here for others to see...

Here is a quote from Richard Lopez's email dated 3/16/2010, 4:42 PM -

"In summary the Court of Appeal held that the design professional was required to defend the developer in a construction defect lawsuit notwithstanding the fact that the jury unanimously found that the design professional was not negligent in the performance of its professional services on the residential development project. This case has far reaching and adverse implications for design professionals."

I have not fully immersed my self in this issue, but my take away is that because of a poorly crafted indemnity clause a design professional was required to defend a developer even thought the design professional was found NOT TO BE NEGLIGENT. How is there anything to like in that case?

I will read more.

Willard, you seem to be quite knowledgable in this area. Perhaps I am naive, but I thought the CH's problem had to do with the flaws the in the contract clause. For example had the clause prescibed limitations on their requirement to defend, this never would have happened. The language that I have seen indicates the limits on the duty to defend extent only to the limits of the duty. I take that to mean that if I enter into and agreement containing such language and that if I am found not to be negligent, then my obligation to defend ends. This seems only fair to me and it seems completely unfair for CH to have to defend beyond the limits of their duty. If you have time to explain more about this, I am sure lots of folks would like to hear more.