I’m very fortunate to have had multiple construction defect litigation trials, and I’m one of a few hand full of attorneys in Arizona that can actually say that. I can’t think of another firm in town that has multiple attorneys that have handled more than one construction defect litigation trial.

One of my most memorable trials, and one that all construction attorneys in Arizona are familiar with, is the Sirrah Enterprises matter, which is a reported case on appeal, an issue on appeal went up to the Arizona Supreme Court. In that case I represented a masonry contractor that was sued by a homeowner. The masonry contractor was ultimately not paid for their work at the conclusion of their work and the homeowner didn’t have any idea that the masonry contractor’s work was deficient in any way.

Going into that trial, my charge was to prove that even though there were some masonry defects in the home, my client should have been paid ultimately at the end of his work. The jury did find in my client’s favor on that aspect, and then found in favor of the homeowner on a couple of other aspects, one being there was some deficient workmanship. At the time, Arizona law did not allow attorney’s fees to be recovered by a homeowner that is making claims with respect to workmanship only that is not tried – not tied – excuse me – to a contract, and so there was no recovery of attorney’s fees for what’s called a claim of breach of the implied warrantee of habitability and workmanship.

And so the homeowner, when they prevailed under that claim, appealed to the trial judge and said, “We’re entitled to recover our attorney’s fees.” And of course my response was, “No, the only attorney’s fees that should be awarded in this case are to my contractor, because he proved that he should have been paid at the culmination of his work.” The trial judge then overturned what the jury found in my clients favor and awarded the homeowner attorney’s fees, and that issue went up on appeal to the Court of Appeals and then up on appeal further to the Arizona Supreme Court. And the Arizona Supreme Court has now set with sufficiency that a homeowner for a breach of implied warrantee claim can in fact recover for attorney’s fees. Even though my name doesn’t appear anywhere in the appeal record for that case, it’s comforting knowing that I was the trial attorney for Sirrah Enterprises, and at trial, I got the result that I was looking for.