from Kevin Pedrotti, Legislative Advocate Golden State Builders Exchanges
Legislature
Fewer policy committees this week as the legislature’s fiscal committees gear up to decide the fate of hundreds of bills. It will be interesting if any bill with even modest state costs survive.
Too major bills were acted upon this week:
AB 720 (Hall) – County Road Commissioners– There has been ongoing concern that counties are using their own forces for construction projects that should be put to bid. AB 720 would end confusion with regard as to whether public agency optees of UPCCAA can utilize other aspects of the Public Contract Code. AB 720 will provide clarity that the county road commissioner authorization in other provisions of the Public Contract Code would apply only for purposes of maintenance and emergency work. The public agencies still are free to make a choice as to how they wish to perform county highway and road construction projects: either by opting in to UPCCAA or by using the county road commissioner provisions. AB 720 raises the force account limit under UPCCAA to offset any suggestion of job loss to the public employee unions. There is major opposition to this measure by county government and represented employees. The bill was passed by the Assembly Local Government Committee. GSBE supports.
SB 474 (Evans) – Construction Liability - SB 474 would protect commercial construction parties from bearing liability for the negligence or design defects of other parties engaged in the construction project by making risk-shifting contract clauses unenforceable. For this purpose, SB 474 would provide that indemnity and duty to defend clauses contained in all construction and insurance contracts would be unenforceable to the extent that the clauses required the non-fault party to be responsible for claims arising from the negligence or fault of another contracting party. Contractual clauses known as "Type 1 indemnity" allow a general contractor who is ninety-nine percent at-fault for an injury or damage to shift ALL of the liability and responsibility for defense to a subcontractor who is only one percent at-fault or to a subcontractor who has no liability for the circumstances surrounding the matter, but whose work is peripherally connected to an underlying accident. The bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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