First Circuit Affirms Challenge to Local Ordinance Restricting Competition on City Projects: In a case of first impression, and on behalf of Merit Construction Alliance and its members, we successfully challenged the enforcement by the City of Quincy (Mass.) of the residency, apprenticeship and health and welfare benefits provisions of its so-called “Responsible Employer Ordinance” in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's ruling, holding that the Responsible Employer Ordinance (REO) is unconstitutional under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and is preempted by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The decision has wide-ranging implications, as there are some 20 or more municipalities in the Commonwealth with similar ordinances, which are now vulnerable because they are arguably unenforceable.

We successfully defended our clients Turner Construction Company and Stryker Biotech in a case that settled important issues of contract and evidence law affecting New Hampshire litigants. In Axenics, Inc. v. Turner Construction Company the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in favor of our clients that (1) a subcontractor cannot bring an unjust enrichment claim against an owner who has paid the general contractor in full, and (2) internal memoranda, work product, or other materials created for the purpose of settlement cannot be used at trial as evidence of liability or damages, even if they are never conveyed to the other side. This hotly-contested case came to the Supreme Court on appeal of a $1 million-plus judgment for the plaintiff-subcontractor, after an eighteen-day bench trial before Merrimack County Superior Court and Business and Commercial Dispute Docket Judge Richard McNamara.

We defended a general contractor’s surety in a multimillion dollar case involving failed concrete panels in a water treatment plant in Vermont. The matter was resolved without trial.