LAW OFFICES OF DAVID L. BRAULT

In a construction action our firm represented a cement subcontractor whose work was inadvertently involved in an underground sewer line being filled with concrete. The cost to remove the concrete was $3 million. A Los Angeles jury agreed with our position that the general contractor, responsible for constructing certain bulkheads, was liable for the loss because a failure of the bulkheads caused the concrete to escape into the sewer line. We also recovered the majority of our clientথes and expenses on the basis of a judicious statutory settlement offer and an attorneyথes㬡use in the contract.

We defended a $2 million personal injury claim against a contractor who reportedly left a fire hose along the gutter of a street over a three-day holiday weekend. A motorcyclist drove over the hose at low speed, fell over, claimed injuries from the fall, and subsequently underwent three back surgeries. Plaintiff୥dical bills approximated $375,000. We demonstrated to a San Diego jury that the accident resulted from driver error, not the hose. After a favorable jury verdict, our client was awarded over $50,000.00 in expert fees and court costs, once again through the effective use of a statutory settlement offer.
 
We represented a general contractor in a breach of contract action in which he sought to recover monies due for an extensive remodeling project he performed on a single-family home in the Los Angeles area. The homeowners brought a counter-claim asserting that our client෯rk was defective. The jury agreed completely with our position and (1) awarded our client 99% of the monies we presented as still due and owing and (2) rejected all of the homeowners䥦ect claims. Once again, the court awarded our client his full attorneyথes/costs pursuant to contract and his expert fees/costs following a statutory offer to compromise the homeowners had declined to accept.

We secured a binding arbitration award of $435,706 in favor of our client, a specialty concrete subcontractor, whose installation of lightweight concrete on the upper floors of a multi-story 16-unit wood-framed condominium building in Los Angeles had allegedly caused extensive Travertine floor tile cracking. The arbitrator agreed with our position that the cause of the cracking was structural movement rather than deficiencies in the lightweight concrete. Again, the strategic use of a statutory offer to compromise resulted in the arbitrator including our clientॸpert fees and costs in the final award, which also included our clientࡴtorneyথes and costs pursuant to its contract with the claimant.