{"id":898548,"date":"2021-03-09T15:18:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T22:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=898548"},"modified":"2021-03-09T15:18:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T22:18:50","slug":"design-defects-contractors-liability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/design-defects-contractors-liability\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Legislation Filed to Relieve Contractors of Liability Resulting From Design Defects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Brian Comarda andAllison K. Wells | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lexology.com\/library\/detail.aspx?g=e4a66050-2415-4a34-95a4-5e4d6e6a0f83&amp;utm_source=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed&amp;utm_medium=HTML+email+-+Body+-+General+section&amp;utm_campaign=Lexology+subscriber+daily+feed&amp;utm_content=Lexology+Daily+Newsfeed+2021-03-08&amp;utm_term=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, Texas is one of only two states where a c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/equitable-subrogation-action\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ontractor may be held liable for defects<\/a> related to construction designs, plans, or specifications \u2013 even if provided by the hiring party (<em>i.e.,<\/em>\u00a0the owner, owner\u2019s agent or design professional). However, new legislation in Texas (SB 219 and HB 1418) has been filed to square Texas in line with other states, to grant contractors protection, and to reverse, in part, the 2012 Texas Supreme Court holding in\u00a0<em>El Paso Field Services, L.P. v. MasTec North America<\/em>,<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.grsm.com\/publications\/2021\/texas-legislation-filed-to-relieve-contractors-of-liability-resulting-from-design-defects\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">[1]<\/a>\u00a0which led to this current situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Texas Supreme Court, in&nbsp;<em>MasTec<\/em>, held that parties enter into contracts freely and voluntarily, and risk of any construction defect should be allocated pursuant to the agreement between the parties. The Court further held that if it chose to become involved in the dispute between the contractor and hiring party, it would essentially render the applicable risk allocation agreement pointless, and essentially prevent sophisticated parties from apportioning risk as they saw fit. As a result of this holding, contractors have been held responsible for the defects that resulted from work performed in accordance with designs, plans, and specifications provided by the hiring party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This new legislation would effectively overrule the Court\u2019s holding in&nbsp;<em>MasTec<\/em>. More specifically, SB 219 and HB 1418, would relieve a contractor of responsibility for the consequences of defects in plans, specifications, or other design or bid documents provided to the contractor by the person with whom the contractor entered into the contract. The bill specifies further that the contractor does not warranty the accuracy, sufficiency, or suitability of such plans. The bill requires the contractor to disclose in writing the existence of any known defect discovered by the contractor before or during the construction or lose the liability protection for the consequence of known, undisclosed defects. This protection cannot be waived by contract. It should be noted that similar legislation failed to pass in 2017 and 2019 over opposition from owners, designers, and architects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brian Comarda andAllison K. Wells | Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani Currently, Texas is one of only two states where a contractor may be held liable for defects related to construction designs, plans, or specifications \u2013 even if provided by the hiring party (i.e.,\u00a0the owner, owner\u2019s agent or design professional). However, new legislation in Texas (SB&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/design-defects-contractors-liability\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Texas Legislation Filed to Relieve Contractors of Liability Resulting From Design Defects<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[9895,19,9010,155],"class_list":["post-898548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-defects","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction-defects-2","tag-contractor-liability","tag-texas","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Texas Legislation Filed to Relieve Contractors of Liability Resulting From Design Defects - Advise &amp; 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