ANAHEIM CALIFORNIA CONSTRUCTION EXPERT WITNESS
DIRECTORY AND CAPABILITIES

Government Claiming Contract Is Void Ab Initio by Contractor Knowingly Making False Statements

January 06, 2026 — David Adelstein - Florida Construction Legal Updates
Can the federal government declare a contract “void ab initio” or void from the beginning? Yes, if the government can “prove that the contractor (a) obtained the contract by (b) knowingly (c) making a false statement.” MLB Transportation v. U.S., 2025 WL 2962897, *8 (Fed.Cl. 2025) (citation omitted).

Where a contractor “obtained [a] contract by knowingly falsely stating that it was a small business … [the] government contract [is] tainted from its inception by fraud [and] is void ab initio.” The general rule that “a Government contract tainted by fraud or wrong-doing is void ab initio … protects the integrity of the federal contracting process and safeguards the public from undetectable threats to the public fisc.” A contract found to be void ab initio has “no legal effect,” and is “[n]ull from the beginning, as from the first moment when a contract is entered into.”

MLB Transportation, supra (citations omitted).

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Reprinted courtesy of David Adelstein, Kirwin Norris
Mr. Adelstein may be contacted at dma@kirwinnorris.com

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On Checks and Balances

March 03, 2026 — Garret Murai - California Construction Law Blog
It’s called “checks and balances” for a reason. And, generally, it works well so long as there are clear boundaries between the “co-equal” branches of government. In Associated General Contractors of California, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations, 108 Cal.App.5th 243 (2025), the 3rd District Court of Appeals upheld a set of regulations issued by the California Apprenticeship Council that contradicted an earlier 2015 ruling of the Court of Appeals. The Associated General Contractors of California Case At issue in the case was California’s Prevailing Wage Law which requires public works contractors to hire a certain ratio of apprentices. The purpose of the apprenticeship requirements is to maintain the pipeline of skilled tradespeople on taxpayer-funded projects. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Garret Murai, Nomos LLP
Mr. Murai may be contacted at gmurai@nomosllp.com

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Two Snell & Wilmer Attorneys Selected as 2026 San Diego Super Lawyers Rising Stars

May 14, 2026 — Snell & Wilmer
SAN DIEGO – Snell & Wilmer is pleased to announce that two attorneys in the San Diego office have been selected for inclusion in the 2026 San Diego Super Lawyers Rising Stars publication. Rising Stars is a listing of lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. To be eligible for inclusion, a candidate must be either 40 years old or younger or in practice for 10 years or less. The selection process is multi-phased and includes independent research and peer nominations, with no more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in the state named to the Rising Stars list. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Snell & Wilmer

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Report: 2023 NYC Crane Fire and Collapse Caused by Failed Hydraulic Hose

December 30, 2025 — Justin Rice - Engineering News-Record
A disconnected hydraulic hose likely sprayed flammable oil onto a hot surface, igniting a blaze that compromised the luffing system of a tower crane on a busy New York City street, sending its boom crashing 500 ft to the ground, according to a long-awaited investigation into a 2023 crane fire and partial collapse on the west side of Manhattan. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Justin Rice, Engineering News-Record
Mr. Rice may be contacted at ricej@enr.com

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Real Estate & Construction News Roundup (3/18/25) – Data Center Frenzy, China’s Expanding REIT Market and Tariff-Affected Construction Costs

March 31, 2026 — Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team - Gravel2Gavel Construction & Real Estate Law Blog
In our latest roundup, relistings reached highest total in a decade, Florida State Legislature passes bill to increase the state’s housing supply, data center construction adapts to changes and more!

• The data center construction frenzy and a new, potentially larger highway bill were top of mind for builders during the latest round of contractor earnings calls and financial reports. (Joe Bousquin, Construction Dive)
• Tariffs and associated policy uncertainty have increased construction costs and delayed leasing and investment choices. (J.P. Morgan)
• Relistings hit the highest January figure since Redfin began tracking this metric a decade ago. (Diana Olick, CNBC).

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Reprinted courtesy of Pillsbury's Construction & Real Estate Law Team

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The AI Knows Too Much: When Employees Feed Trade Secrets into Generative AI Tools

April 14, 2026 — Kazim A. Naqvi & John V. Mysliwiec - Sheppard
Every time an employee pastes proprietary source code, a customer list, or a confidential business strategy into ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Gemini, they may be quietly dismantling the legal protections that make those secrets worth protecting. Courts and regulators are only beginning to grapple with this problem, and right now, the burden of preventing it falls squarely on employers. The Legal Stakes Under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) and the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“UTSA”) as adopted across most states, a trade secret plaintiff must show that the information at issue was subject to reasonable measures to maintain its secrecy. Courts have historically credited measures like confidentiality agreements, physical access controls, and employee training—but those safeguards were designed for a world of thumb drives and disgruntled employees. They were not built for a world where a well-meaning engineer can, in seconds, transmit an entire corpus of proprietary data to a third-party AI platform operating under terms of service that may permit the provider to use inputs for model training. Reprinted courtesy of Kazim A. Naqvi, Sheppard and John V. Mysliwiec, Sheppard Mr. Naqvi may be contacted at knaqvi@sheppard.com Mr. Mysliwiec may be contacted at jmysliwiec@sheppard.com Read the full story...

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Measure Twice, Cut (the Check) Once: Liability for Cybercrime and How to Avoid It

December 15, 2025 — Curt Martin, Richard Volack & Quinn Kuriger - ConsensusDocs
The well-known maxim among carpenters – “measure twice, cut once” – serves as a prudent reminder in the context of construction progress payments, which have become increasingly vulnerable to cybercriminal activity. Consider the following scenario: a joint venture contractor had been receiving progress payments via wire transfer from the project owner. A cybercriminal infiltrated the contractor’s IT infrastructure, identified a pending invoice, and impersonated an employee to redirect the payment. The hacker initially requested that the funds be sent to a new account in rural New York under the general contractor’s name, rather than to the joint venture’s established Houston account. The owner wisely inquired why it should pay the general contractor and not the joint venture who the owner had paid on the prior twenty-nine progress payments. The hacker quickly corrected its request, submitted a new request that misspelled the joint venture’s name, and specified ACH to a third bank, this time in Florida. Despite these glaring red flags, the owner less wisely wired $460,000 to the hacker’s account. Reprinted courtesy of Curt Martin, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. , Richard Volack, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. and Quinn Kuriger, Peckar & Abramson, P.C. Mr. Martin may be contacted at cmartin@pecklaw.com Mr. Volack may be contacted at rvolack@pecklaw.com Mr. Kuriger may be contacted at qkuriger@pecklaw.com Read the full story...

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Additional Insured’s Claim for a Defense Is Dismissed

December 22, 2025 — Tred R. Eyerly - Insurance Law Hawaii
The court dismissed the additional insured’s complaint seeking a defense against a personal injury case. Piece Mgmt., Inc. v. Atlantic Casualty Ins. Co., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 205589 (S.D. N. Y. Oct. 18, 2025). The underlying plaintiff, Mustafaa Dais alleged that he was injured when a glass door collapsed onto him as he exited BJ’s Restaurant. Dais sued BJ’s seeking damages for his injuries. He later amended his complaint to add Piece Management, Inc. the property’s management company, and Narway, Inc., the company hired to install the glass door. Under the subcontract between Piece and Narwy, Narway was required to maintain a general liability policy and to add Piece as an additional insured. Narway obtained the required policy from Atlantic Casualty Insurance Company. Read the full story...
Reprinted courtesy of Tred R. Eyerly, Damon Key Leong Kupchak Hastert
Mr. Eyerly may be contacted at te@hawaiilawyer.com

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