Construction lawsuits clog  judges’ calendars

Steve Marcus

More new homes in the valley have meant more lawsuits alleging faulty construction. Clark County has three judges who exclusively handle these cases, most of which involve soil, water, plumbing or foundation, or a combination of those issues.

By Brian Eckhouse (contact)

Friday, April 4, 2008 | 2 a.m.

At first glance the relationship seems to make sense: an explosion of new homes in the Las Vegas Valley since 2000 prompts a rise in the number of construction defects suits filed today.

But there was an emphatic spike in the number of defects cases filed in 2006 and 2007, and court officials expect a similar caseload again this year. If that materializes, the 113 cases filed in 2007 wouldn’t be an aberration.

In 2001, 69 construction defects cases were filed in District Court. Five years later 77 cases were processed.

Many of these cases are related, perhaps hinting at systemic problems in the recent rush to cover the valley with homes, and some are class-action suits with thousands of plaintiffs. Most of the them, court officials say, involve soil, water, plumbing or foundation issues — or some combination thereof.

The surge in construction defects cases has strained a congested local courthouse. One judge, Susan Johnson, is about a month into a half-year trial pitting residents in Sun City Summerlin against developer Del Webb. Residents claim the developer used shoddy stucco.

The other two District Court judges who handle these matters, Allan Earl and Timothy Williams, also are backlogged. In 2001 that court began assigning defects cases exclusively to three judges.

Then there’s the matter of older cases. Suits that are not resolved by settlement or withdrawal must be heard within five years of their filing. A few such suits are approaching that five-year mark, so they must be attended to now, Johnson said.

Each year about 60 cases are scheduled for trial among the three judges, but most get settled just before they reach a jury. The judges, as well as mediators, encourage settlements to avoid jury trials, which typically last weeks, if not months. Johnson says she presides over two or three defects trials a year.

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Dozens of workers in the Regional Justice Center continue to lobby their supervisors to relocate them from the often stinky confines of the bad check and information technology departments. Both are based in the courthouse’s lower level, where the strong stench of sewage or grease regularly wafts through.

As the Sun reported this week, the Service Employees International Union has begun organizing the workers to push for different digs if the source of the stink remains unknown. County officials have been investigating for months and recently assigned one maintenance employee to the task full-time, a spokeswoman said.

A petition signed by 34 of the workers was presented Monday to Assistant District Attorney Christopher Lalli. It calls for the lower level to be closed. That level also is home to two small courtrooms, mostly for arraignments and negotiations, and grand juries meet down there.

The workers’ supervisors acknowledge the stink is unpleasant, but note that air quality tests indicate it isn’t unhealthy. Administrators say they’d consider moving their workers elsewhere, but there’s nowhere to go. The county’s office buildings downtown are maxed out.

“It’s just a nightmare for us,” Lalli said of the current inability to relocate the workers.

Those workers, along with their union, could appeal to the county commissioners and other elected officials. They’re also considering hitting the county with a class-action suit, one employee said.

They won’t have to walk very far to file it.

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O.J. Simpson’s trial may have been delayed until September, but the media glare still figures to shine on the Regional Justice Center this month. Local media, anyway.

On Wednesday, a District Court judge is expected to sentence Raven Navajo. Navajo was found guilty of killing a local cocktail waitress last year. The victim, Brenda Schmalfeldt, had been drinking with friends at Zodie’s on East Flamingo Road and was last seen leaving the bar with Navajo on Jan. 13, 2007.

What makes the case unusual is that Navajo lives as a woman but was born a man, and Schmalfeldt’s body has never been found. Authorities say Navajo tossed Schmalfeldt into a trash bin after killing her, so the victim is buried under garbage at the landfill.