Dallas Austin

Surety bonds are an important cog in the construction industry machine, but a topic rife with complexities. Put plainly, a surety bond, whether a payment bond, performance bond, release of lien bond, or appeal bond, generally refers to a three-party relationship that includes a (1) principal (who is purchasing the surety bond to make sure of a performance of an obligation); (2) obligee (who is the party requiring or requesting the bond); and (3) the surety (who is issuing the bond, guaranteeing the principal’s obligations/performance, and if the principal fails to perform, step in to fulfill

Although property owners’ associations maintain a large amount of control over the choices homeowners make for their property and the structures owners build on their property, the Texas Legislature recently limited that control. On June 15, 2021, Texas Property Code §202.023 came into effect. This statute limits the power of property owners’ associations to prevent owners from building or installing security measures on their property. Specifically, the statute states: A property owners’ association may not adopt or enforce a restrictive covenant that prevents a property owner from

The building shell for a privately owned airplane hangar in Boise, Idaho was supposed to be completed by January 31, 2024. Instead, the hangar collapsed, killing three and injuring several others. The owner of the general contractor for the project, Big D Builders (BDB), was decapitated in the collapse. Two BDB employees, who were on a manlift hoisted 40 feet in the air installing bolts to secure the building rafters at the time of the collapse, were also killed. On July 9, 2024, the families of the deceased workers filed a wrongful death lawsuit against BDB and three other construction compan

When is an owner liable for personal injuries sustained on its property? In Oxy USA WTP LP v. Bringas, the Houston Court of Appeals (First District) held that Oxy USA WTP LT (“Oxy”), the property owner, was not liable to a third-tier subcontractor under a premise liability, negligent activity or negligence per se theory. In Bringas, Bringas, a third-tier independent contractor to Oxy, was asked to swap out two slide-top waste bins with open-top waste bins at a remote, unmanned compressor station, the Barilla Draw, in the Permian Basin. Bringas opted to perform the work in near complete dar

Is a product manufacturer that complies with federally adopted standards liable for damages under Texas’s statutory product liability law? The Texas Supreme Court in American Honda Motor Company, Inc. v. Milburn, recently addressed a product liability case in which the main issues on appeal was whether Honda defectively designed a seatbelt system that caused severe injuries to Sarah Milburn and whether Texas’s product liability statute, contained in Chapter 82 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 82.008, shielded Honda from liability. Section 82.008 entitles a product man