Construction Litigation Law Blog

Under the statute of repose, no action to recover damages for any deficiency in the design, planning, surveying, supervision or construction of an improvement to real property may be brought more than ten (10) years after the performance of “such services and construction.” N.J.S.A. § 2A:14-1.1. Essentially, the statute of repose provides that an injury occurring more than ten years after completion of improvements to real property does not give rise to a cause of action at all.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has held that the ten-year statute of repose for bringing an action against a contractor or an architect begins to run as of “substantial completion” of the real property. Russo Farms v. Vineland Bd. of Educ., 144 N.J. 84, 117 (1996). The Court defined “substantial completion” as the date when construction is sufficiently complete so that an owner can occupy or utilize the building. Therefore, generally when the architect certifies as much to the owner and a Certificate of Occupancy is issued attesting to the building’s fitness for occupancy, the real property is substantially complete and the statute of repose begins to run.

One important concept has evolved from recent developments of case law interpreting the statute of repose: the start date for the ten-year time limit of the statute of repose is not the same for all contractors and design professionals on a particular project; the start date differs depending on a party’s continued involvement with a construction project. See State v. Perini Corp., 425 N.J. Super. 62 (App. Div. 2012). The Perini Court engaged in a lengthy discourse of the relevant case law interpreting New Jersey’s statute of repose from which it derived three guiding principles: First, the trigger date is the date of substantial completion, not completion of every last task of the contractor; Second, separate trigger dates apply to subcontractors that have substantially completed their work, even if the improvement as a whole is not completed and ready for use and a certificate of occupancy has not been issued; Third, the trigger date for any single contractor runs from completion of that contractor’s entire work on the “improvement,” not from discrete tasks. [425 N.J. Super. at 74-75 (internal quotations omitted).] This means that certain contractors, who performed services on a job site early on, can benefit from a repose period that commences earlier than the date of substantial completion.

Thus, while the statute of repose commences as to the developer, general contractor and architect upon substantial completion, the analysis is not the same for each individual contractor who will claim the benefit of the repose period ten years after the date the contractor walked away from the project having rendered all of his services and discharged all of his responsibilities

Finally, it is important to note that the strict limitations of the statute of repose only apply to those claims “arising out of the defective and unsafe condition of an improvement to real property.” N.J.S.A. § 2A:14-1.1. The statute as plainly worded applies to parties whose professional work is functionally related to and integrated with a building plan or design, and which gives rise or contributes to a defective and unsafe condition.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has pointed out that the statute of repose does not provide that all claims against planners, and designers, including surveyors, vanish after the passage of ten years from the performance of services. Rather, the statute of repose includes as a significant limiting qualification the requirement that a condition be both defective and unsafe. This means that in determining which actions fall within the statute, a court must first determine, as a threshold issue, whether the claimed condition is one that can be classified as "defective and unsafe."

An unsafe condition exists when the work created a situation hazardous to the well-being and safety of persons or property coming into contact with the improvement or structure. See, e.g., Newark Beth Israel Medical Center v. Gruzen and Partners, 124 N.J. 357 (1991) (prospect that building an addition to a hospital as designed would render the completed building dangerously susceptible to wind created an unsafe and hazardous condition even though the design flaw did not pose a threat to the building as then presently constructed) Rosenberg v. Town of N. Bergen, 61 N.J. 190, 197-98 (1972) (holding that a negligently paved road created an unsafe condition); Cnty. of Hudson v. Terminal Constr. Corp., 154 N.J. Super. 264, 267 (App. Div. 1977) (holding that negligently installed ceramic tiles that began to crumble and fall created a hazardous condition), certif. denied, 75 N.J. 605 (1978); Salesian Soc'y v. Formigli Corp., 120 N.J. Super. 493, 496 (Law Div.1972) (holding that the leakage of water that damaged the building's support structure created an unsafe condition), aff'd o.b., 124 N.J. Super. 270 (App. Div. 1973); cf. E.A. Williams, supra, 82 N.J. at 170-71 (surveying error, resulting in improper spacing between buildings, did not rise to the level of a dangerous and unsafe condition); N.C. State Ports Auth. v. L. A. Fry Roofing Co., 294 N.C. 73, 86 (1978) (action against contractor for damages from leaky roof was not subject to statute of repose because no unsafe condition was found).

Accordingly, in order for the statute of repose to even apply, defendants will have to show that their work created an unsafe or hazardous condition.

The doctrine of equitable estoppel prevents a defendant from asserting the statute of limitations as a defense when the defendant has engaged in conduct that was calculated to mislead the plaintiff into believing that it was unnecessary to file suit. Thus, our courts have recognized that equitable estoppel may be appropriate where a defendant has lulled plaintiff into a false sense of security by representing that a claim will be amicably settled or resolved without the necessity for litigation. Such is the case when an association is engaged in settlement discussions with a developer and the developer promises to repair all identified defects and water intrusion issues in the community.

The important caveat regarding equitable tolling is that if, after the cessation of any basis for continued reliance by a plaintiff on the conduct of a defendant, there remains a reasonable time under the applicable limitations period to commence a cause of action, the action will be barred if not filed within this remaining time. Thus, while the discovery rule defers the accrual of a cause of action and provides a full six (6) years after discovery of injury and fault to file suit, equitable tolling delays the bar of the statute of limitations once a cause of action has accrued and may provide less than the full six years to file a claim if plaintiff has “a reasonable time” after the basis for equitable tolling has ceased to file under the original limitations period. What constitutes “reasonable” is not well delineated and will likely turn on the specific facts of each case.

The novel nature of condominium ownership, specifically the transition process, affects the statute of limitations analysis. The Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act requires that the developer of a condominium staff the board of trustees of an association and control the affairs of the association until seventy-five percent of the units in the development are sold. During that period of control, the developer is under a fiduciary responsibility to the association to act in the best interest of the association and its membership. Pragmatically speaking, however, a developer-controlled association is much different than a homeowner controlled association. Even if certain problems with construction are discovered during developer-control, it cannot be realistically expected that the developer-controlled board would take steps to investigate those defects and litigate, on behalf of the association, if necessary. Therefore, equity and common sense suggest that the earliest the statute of limitations clock could begin to run against an association for construction defect claims is the date of transition, at which time the unit owners take control of the board of trustees for the first time.

To this end, our courts recognize the inherent unfairness in allowing statutes of limitations to run against an association while the developer controls its board. The reason is clear – individual unit owners lack standing to assert claims for faulty construction affecting the common elements prior to transition. Thus, equity cannot support the running of limitation periods against an association that legally cannot assert its rights during the period of developer control.

In New Jersey, the Law Division decision in Terrace Condominium Ass'n v. Midlantic Nat. Bank, 268 N.J. Super. 488 (Law Div. 1993), clearly stands for the proposition that statutes should be tolled when the unit owners of a condominium are not in control of the Board. In Terrace, a condominium association brought an action against a bank that took over construction of the building. At the time the bank took over, some of the units had been sold, but construction was still continuing. Construction was later completed under the bank’s watch, and almost immediately its residents experienced numerous problems with water infiltration into their units. Midlantic, the bank/owner in question, engaged an engineer to document the problems and provide a solution. Most of these repairs were “short-lived or improper repairs to the most significant of the [] problems and generally had the effect of concealing the true causes of the problems.”

Transition occurred and the Association filed suit against Midlantic. Midlantic raised a statute of limitations defense as to several of the building warranty claims. The court found that because the bank had effectuated repairs, the statute of limitations did not run against the unit owners because they relied upon the bank to effectuate the proper repairs while in control of the Association. Additionally, the court found that, notwithstanding the repairs undertaken by Midlantic, the “unit owners had no control of the Association, and should not be bound by the period of time thereto.” This is true “even if each unit owner could have sued the Bank while the Bank was in control of the Association” and that “it may well be that ordinarily the right to make such claims should be tolled or deferred until the unit owners control the association.”

There is also an unpublished decision by the Appellate Division that directly addresses a condominium Association’s ability to control its own destiny. The Appellate Division decision captioned Skyline Condominium Assoc. v. Falkin, No. A-3913-98, A-3860-98, A-3792-98 (App. Div. September 10, 2001), is right on point. In the Skyline opinion, the Appellate Division was faced with the issue of “determining the first date that a plaintiff obtained the enforceable right to institute and maintain an action regarding the controversy” for the purposes of the entire controversy doctrine.

Recognizing the difficulty in running the statute of limitations clock while the individual unit owners are not in control of their association’s board, the Skyline Court concluded that the statute of limitations on an action for construction defects by a condominium association against a sponsor should be tolled until the unit owners control the association.

In New Jersey, construction defect claims are subject to a six-year statute of limitations, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1, which is subject to the discovery rule, and a separate ten-year statute of absolute repose, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1.1, after which potential causes of action no longer exist.

Under New Jersey’s discovery rule, the accrual of a cause of action is deferred until the injured person knows or should know that he has sustained an injury and knows or should know that an injury of which he is aware is attributable to the fault of another person. The discovery rule is an equitable principle by which an accrual of a cause of action is delayed until the injured party discovers, or by the exercise of reasonable diligence and intelligence, should have discovered, that he may have a basis for an actionable claim. Once the injured party knows that it has been injured and that the injury is the fault of another, it has the requisite knowledge for the period of limitations to commence running.

Put simply, for a cause of action to accrue, the injured plaintiff must have knowledge of both injury and fault. Lynch v. Rubacky, 85 N.J. 65, 70 (1981) ("the discovery rule centers upon an injured party's knowledge concerning the origin and existence of his injuries as related to the conduct of another person"). This rule applies to complex construction defect cases involving hidden construction and design defects.

Among the relevant factors in analyzing whether the discovery rule applies are the nature of the injury and the difficulties inherent in discovering it. Vispisiano v. Ashland Chem. Co., 107 N.J. 416, 428 (1987). For example, in a toxic tort case, such as that presented in Vispisiano, diagnosing a plaintiff's injury is but the first step in establishing a chain of causation. Id. at 429. The plaintiff's suspicion that he had been poisoned, after comparing his symptoms to those of a co-worker, was not sufficient to accrue a cause of action, particularly in the face of his doctors' repeatedly rejecting plaintiff's concerns that he had been poisoned while working at a chemical plant. Id. at 436.

Applying the foregoing to the condominium construction defect setting gives rise to the argument that a plaintiff association’s cause of action accrues when it receives an engineer’s report (either during transition or afterwards) that first apprises the association of the defects afflicting its buildings and the suspected causes of those defects. However, it may be the case that the requisite knowledge is obtained at an earlier date when unit owner board members learn of defects.

Statutes of repose and limitations establish different types of deadlines for the assertion of claims. Statutes of repose begin to run at an identifiable time or event and allow a claim to be filed for a specific amount of time after that event has occurred. After the expiration of the repose period, no claim will be deemed to have accrued and none may be filed. A statute of repose does not function to bar an existing cause of action; rather, it prevents what might otherwise be a cause of action from ever arising. Statutes of limitations, on the other hand, commence at the time a claim accrues and run for a specified amount of time. After a claim accrues, the statute of limitations begins to run and an action may be filed until the end of the limitations period or the end of the repose period, whichever comes first.

New Jersey follows the discovery rule, which tolls the running of the statute of limitations until the time when plaintiff has or reasonable should have knowledge of injury and fault. One fundamental difference between the statute of limitations and repose is that the statute of limitations may be tolled, whereas the statute of repose cannot. In New Jersey, the statute of repose period is ten (10) years from the date of substantial completion and the statute of limitations period is six (6) years from the date of accrual of a cause of action.

1. The legal name and business address of the seller, including the legal name and business address of the sales representative or agent who solicited or negotiated the contract for the seller;
2. The contractor’s Division of Consumer Affairs registration number and the DCA’s toll free telephone number must be prominently displayed on the first page of the contract;
3. A copy of the Certificate of Commercial General Liability Insurance required of a contractor under the Act and the telephone number of the insurance company issuing the Certificate;
4. A description of the work to be done and the principal products and materials to be used or installed in performance of the contract;
5. The total price, including all finance charges and, where applicable, the hourly rate for labor;
6. The start date and completion date;
7. A description of any mortgage or security interest to be taken in connection with the financing or sale of the home improvement; 
8. A statement of any guarantee or warranty with respect to any products, materials, labor or services made by the contractor; and
9. A precise and conspicuous notice of cancellation provision informing the customer of his or her right to cancel the contract by the end of the third business day after having received a copy of the contract.

Gene Markin, member of Stark & Stark’s Construction Litigation Group, authored the article, Construction Defect Plaintiffs: Be Aware of the Statute of Repose, for the March 19, 2012 edition of the New Jersey Law Journal.

The article discusses the fact that in New Jersey, litigations need to be aware of the “statue of repose” in addition to the statue of limitations. Mr. Markin states that statute of repose issues will most commonly arise in the area of construction defect litigation, when a lawsuit is filed more than 10 years after the construction of a building.

You can read the full article online here. (PDF)

Gene Markin, member of Stark & Stark’s Construction Litigation Group, authored the article, Buyer Beware of Defects in New Construction, for the January 30, 2012 edition of the New Jersey Law Journal. The article discusses why the remedy under the homeowner warranty program, may not be a remedy at all.

In the article, Mr. Markin states, “Since its inception, the New Jersey Home Warranty and Builders’ Registration Act, N.J.S.A. 46:3B-1 to -20, has proven to be more of a trap for new homeowners than the safety net it was purported to be. The purpose of the act is to establish a program requir¬ing that newly constructed homes con¬form to certain construction and quality standards, as well as to provide buyers of new homes with insurance-backed warranty protection in the event such standards are not met. While the intent of the act is to provide homeowners with a prompt, convenient and cost-saving means of resolving disputes con¬cerning construction defects, in reality, its effect has been, in many cases, to strip homeowners of any meaningful means of recovery for discovered con¬struction defects.”

An action for trespass arises upon the unauthorized entry onto another's property, real or personal. A trespass on property, whether real or personal, is actionable, irrespective of any appreciable injury. Under a trespass theory, a plaintiff may "assert a claim for whatever damages the facts may lawfully warrant." Thus, a plaintiff may claim damages from the loss in value to the land trespassed upon, as well as consequential damages such as property taxes and loss of profits.

While a municipality enjoys immunity for its exercise of discretion and judgment in the development of a sewer and drainage plan, such immunity does not protect it from liability for the creation of a nuisance or actual trespass.

This blog is the fifth and final installment in a series of posts discussing an individual’s potential liability for the collective decisions made by their board. Be sure to read our previous posts online here.

A Board that acts in reliance upon advice of its experts and legal professionals cannot be held liable for negligence or breach of fiduciary duty if that advice turns out to be wrong. A provision of the New Jersey Nonprofit Corporation Act specifically provides, in relevant part:

Trustees and members of any committee designated by the board shall discharge their duties in good faith and with that degree of diligence, care and skill which ordinary, prudent persons would exercise under similar circumstances in like positions. In discharging their duties, trustees and members of any committee designated by the board shall not be liable if, acting in good faith, they rely on the opinion of counsel for the corporation or upon written reports setting forth financial data concerning the corporation and prepared by an independent public accountant or certified public accountant or firm of accountants or upon financial statements, books of account or reports of the corporation represented to them to be correct by the president, the officer of the corporation having charge of its books of account, or the person presiding at a meeting of the board.

[N.J.S.A. § 15A:6-14 (emphasis added).]

An action for nuisance may be brought against a public entity unhampered by the TCA. Private nuisance is but one possible theory for recovery of damages caused by the invasion of one's interest in the private use and enjoyment of land. That interest may be invaded by more than one type of conduct, i.e., the conduct may be intentional, it may be unintentional but caused by negligent or reckless conduct, or it may result from an abnormally dangerous activity for which there is strict liability. One is subject to liability for private nuisance if the invasion is either:
(a) intentional and unreasonable, or
(b) unintentional and otherwise actionable under the rules controlling liability for negligent or reckless conduct, or for abnormally dangerous conditions or activities.

[Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 822 (1979).]

The conduct necessary to make the actor liable for a private nuisance may consist of an act or a failure to act under circumstances in which the actor is under a duty to take positive action to prevent or abate an interference. Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 824 (1979). An invasion is intentional if the actor purposely causes it or knows that the invasion is substantially certain to result from his conduct. An intentional invasion of another's use is unreasonable if:
(a) the gravity of the harm outweighs the utility of the actor's conduct, or
(b) the harm caused by the conduct is serious and the financial burden of compensating for this and similar harm to others would not make the continuation of the conduct not feasible.
[Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 826.].

Water discharge from a broken storm drain pipe is most likely an actionable nuisance. See, e.g., City of Oxford v. Spears, 228 Miss. 433 (1956) (There is no question that an invasion of one's interest in the use of downstream waters may constitute a nuisance); Sterling Iron and Zinc Co. v. Sparks Manufacturing Co., 55 N.J.Eq. 824 (E. & A. 1896) (New Jersey long ago recognized that the pollution of a watercourse may constitute an actionable nuisance); Bengivenga v. Plainfield, 128 N.J.L. 418 (E. & A. 1942) (municipalities were held liable for nuisance resulting in water pollution, although the legal analysis upon which liability was based, active wrongdoing, is now outdated); Borough of Westville v. Whitney Home Builders, 40 N.J. Super. 62, 68 (App. Div. 1956) (Our courts have held that the discharge of treated sewage effluent into a running stream is not necessarily an unreasonable riparian use in today's civilization, but that it may be unreasonable if the harm from doing so outweighs the benefit).

Presented with the question of whether a public entity can be liable for a nuisance as recognized by the TCA, our Supreme Court concluded that it is for two reasons: First, sections of the Tort Claims Act may be interpreted as making public entities liable for nuisance under the standards provided by the Act, and second, in light of the history of municipal liability in this area, the Supreme Court perceived no intent to eliminate this liability.

With respect to the statutory recognition and continuation of the nuisance cause of action, the two sections of the act implicated are N.J.S.A. 59:4-2 and N.J.S.A. 59:2-2. The former creates liability for injury caused by the dangerous condition of a public entity's property. Nothing in this section has been construed to impose liability upon a public entity for a dangerous condition of its public property if the action the entity took to protect against the condition or the failure to take such action was not palpably unreasonable. Thus, this section imposes liability upon a municipality in its status as property owner for nuisance where its actions can be found to be "palpably unreasonable."

In sum, an action in nuisance may be maintained against a municipality under and subject to the standards of the Tort Claims Act, so long as Plaintiff shows that the action taken or failure to act by the public entity was palpably unreasonable. See, e.g., Lyons v. Twp. of Wayne, 185 N.J. 426, 434 (2005) ("When analyzing a nuisance . . . wrongful conduct is not limited to the creation of the condition. Rather, a failure to physically remove or legally abate that condition, resulting in the physical invasion of another's property, also constitutes wrongful conduct."); Gould & Eberhardt, Inc. v. City of Newark, 6 N.J. 240, 243 (1951) ("[A] municipality does not have the right to collect surface water and discharge it upon private property in greater quantity and with greater force than would occur from natural flow, so as to cause substantial injury."); Sheppard v. Twp. of Frankford, 261 N.J. Super. 5, 8 (App. Div. 1992) (noting that injunctive relief was appropriate because unreasonable discharge of storm waters by township onto plaintiffs' property created continuing nuisance); Black v. Borough of Atlantic Highlands, 263 N.J. Super. 445, 453 (App. Div. 1993) (allowing nuisance cause of action for failing to prune crab apple trees creating dangerous condition on adjacent private property).

In Russo Farms v. Vineland Bd. of Educ., 144 N.J. 84 (N.J. 1996), the Plaintiffs brought a lawsuit against, inter alia, the Vineland Board of Education (the Board) and the City of Vineland (the City) for damages to their crops and farmland from flooding that resulted from the improper siting and construction of a public school located across the street from their property and by an inadequate drainage system on a bordering street. Plaintiffs claimed that the Board and City were liable under a nuisance theory because the Board and City's use of their property invaded plaintiffs' use and enjoyment of their land. The Court noted that invasion was a physical invasion, which ordinarily sounds in trespass, but "the flooding of the plaintiff's land, which is a trespass, is also a nuisance if it is repeated or of long duration." See also Hennessy v. Carmony, 50 N.J. Eq. 616, 618 (Ch. 1892) (throwing water on another's property once constitutes a trespass, "to continue to do so constitutes a nuisance").

When a court finds that a continuing nuisance has been committed, it implicitly holds that the defendant is committing a new tort, including a new breach of duty, each day, triggering a new statute of limitations. That new tort is an "alleged present failure" to remove the nuisance, and since this failure occurs each day that the defendant does not act, the defendant's alleged tortious inaction constitutes a continuous nuisance for which a cause of action accrues anew each day. See also Sheppard v. Township of Frankford, 261 N.J. Super. 5, 8-9 (App. Div. 1992) (noting that disposal of water runoff onto plaintiff's property created continuing nuisance).

It is pretty well settled that periodic flooding due to defective construction of a drainage system constitutes a continuing tort. The Russo Farms court held that a nuisance is continuing when it is the result of a condition that can be physically removed or legally abated. In such a case, it is realistic to impute a continuing duty to the defendant to remove the nuisance, and to conclude that each new injury includes all elements of a nuisance, including a new breach of duty. On the other hand, when the nuisance cannot physically be removed, it is unfair to impose a continuing, impossible to fulfill duty to remove the nuisance.

Accordingly, the continued flooding of a landowner’s property would be considered an actionable continuous nuisance. See Russo Farms, supra, 144 N.J. at, 97-105 (holding that TCA permits nuisance and negligence causes of action for damages caused on private property by dangerous condition on public entity's property created by school drainage and municipal storm-water drainage system); Medford Lakes, supra, 90 N.J. at 591-96 (allowing action for nuisance for damage to lake caused by discharge from municipally owned and operated sewage treatment plant); Saldana v. DiMedio, 275 N.J. Super. 488, 499 (App. Div. 1994) (allowing cause of action against municipality for dangerous condition on its property for fire that spread from city-owned abandoned building to privately-owned property); Sheppard v. Township of Frankford, 261 N.J. Super. 5 (App. Div. 1992) (in a nuisance case that involved a public entity's disposal of storm-water runoff onto private property the court found a continuous nuisance existed where the storm-water drainage system at issue "enhanced, concentrated, and sped up the flow of the storm water into the drainage ditch," thereby causing flood damage on the plaintiff's property).

This blog is the fourth in a series of posts discussing an individual’s potential liability for the collective decisions made by their board. Be sure to read our previous posts online here.

When liability for any of these breaches is imposed on an individual director or trustee, the issue of indemnification arises. In New Jersey, because condominium associations are generally organized as not-for-profit corporations under the Nonprofit Corporation Act, indemnification may be available to an officer of an entity organized under this Act provided that the officer (1) “acted in good faith and in a manner which the [officer] reasonably believed to be in or not opposed to the best interests of the corporation,” and (2) “with respect to an criminal proceeding, the [officer] had no reasonable cause to believe the conduct was unlawful.” N.J.S.A. 15A:3-4(b). If the director can satisfy this standard, he can recover from the association both expenses incurred in the litigation and the amount paid in satisfaction of a judgment rendered against him. Id. However, entitlement to indemnification for a claim for punitive damages will not likely be available because it is generally against public policy to provide indemnification for punitive damages. Johnson & Johnson v. Aetna Cas., 285 N.J. Super. 575 (App. Div. 1995).