Godfrey Wins $14.4 Million In Construction Defect Case
Following an 8-week arbitration in Dallas, Texas, Brett Godfrey and his team obtained a $14.4 million award for a developer-owner of two large residential apartment complexes that were damaged as a result of construction defects. They were opposed by eight opposing law firms, each of which had at least two attorneys defending the matter.
The residential apartment complexes are both located in the Midland-Odessa region of west Texas, comprising several hundred units each.
The damages consisted principally of water damage and resulting structural failures. The defects included flaws in the building envelopes, structural flaws that resulted in damage to the load-bearing portions of the structures and damage to the grading and paving of the roadways, walks and driveways of the units.
The evidence offered in support of the claims consisted principally of expert testimony from engineers, material scientists and cost-of-repair specialists, as well as a vast array of computerized renditions, indexed photographic archives, spreadsheets and summaries.
“Managing this much evidence in a large-scale, complex case such as this required the use of customized cloud-based software that gave the arbitration panel the ability to directly access and view each portion of the photographic and textual records, including deposition testimony, expert reports and computational models,” said Brett Godfrey, who led the trial team. “We had all of our information available instantly, which made it much easier to respond to questions posed by the panel members during the testimony.”
“From our perspective, the entire case was handled in a paperless fashion, leveraging the technology we developed specifically for cases of this kind. With these tools, our experts were able to have immediate access to all discovery materials on which they based their opinion testimony, including the ability to search vast quantities of information in a matter of seconds and to collate all documents that contain information specific to particular issues. As a result, they were bulletproof on cross-examination.”
The physical property damage caused by the construction defects will require removal and replacement of stucco and brick exterior surfaces of the buildings, as well as re-paving much of the roadways, walks and drives within the communities, as well as replacement of many of the balconies, roofing components and re-grading of the landscapes to prevent negative drainage.
Godfrey Law, P.C., is a Denver-based firm that handles large-scale complex litigation throughout the United States.