Drawing on our multi-disciplinary team to successfully defend our clients

Foley Hoag’s Construction and Development Disputes Group handles construction, real estate and development disputes for our clients, primarily private and public owners. In this often complex area of the law, we gain an edge through assembling a multi-disciplinary team, which draws on the firm’s strengths in areas such as litigation, real estate, administrative law, environmental law and government strategies. We are particularly experienced in getting troubled projects back on track and resolving disputes early.

Our lawyers have helped our clients resolve the gamut of disputes involving construction, real estate and development. These matters include:

  • Construction disputes
  • Land valuation disputes
  • Title and title insurance disputes
  • Real estate and land-use development disputes

Our group includes experienced litigators who have successfully tried and defended multi-million-dollar construction and real estate cases. We also offer our clients the practical experience of our widely versed team members, which include the former chief of staff and chief legal counsel for the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, and others who have participated first-hand in major public and private development projects.

Our clients include government agencies and private developers, insureds and insurers, subcontractors, contractors and owners. Some of our clients have included the following:

  • Construction management and general contracting firms
  • State turnpike, port and mass transit authorities
  • Title insurance companies
  • Banks and financial services institutions
  • Municipal redevelopment agencies
  • Supermarket and drugstore chains
  • Real estate developers

If you are involved in construction, development or real estate, we can help you resolve any disputes and move forward with your plans.

Construction Disputes

Foley Hoag’s Construction Disputes attorneys represent owners, contractors and subcontractors in the full range of construction disputes. In addition to drawing on the dispute-resolution experience of our litigators, the group draws on the experience of transactional lawyers. These professionals have held key leadership positions on major public projects, such as the Central Artery/Tunnel Project, and have helped procure a team to design, build, finance, operate and maintain a 23-mile segment of Massachusetts Highway Route 3. This mix of courtroom skill and practical know-how makes us uniquely positioned to manage your construction disputes.

Whether calling-in performance bonds, litigating delay and disruption claims or working through mechanic’s lien statutes, we can help keep your projects on track. Examples of our varied experience include the following:

  • When a Massachusetts municipal housing department discovered previously undetected asbestos during a $15 million housing rehabilitation project, we facilitated the re-bid of the project, persuaded the performance bond surety to assume the increased bid costs, negotiated a settlement of the original contractor’s delay and disruption claims, and secured an offsetting payment made on behalf of the project’s asbestos testing company.
  • After a fire damaged our client's waterfront property in East Boston, we sued the contractor whose negligence started the fire, tried the case to jury and successfully delivered the jury’s million-dollar damage verdict on appeal.
  • We represented the structural steel contractor for a multi-million dollar high-rise office building in New York City when disputes arose with the building’s owner, the construction manager, the erection subcontractor, and the performance and payment bond sureties.
  • Using sophisticated critical-path analyses, we have defended a public transportation authority against delay and disruption claims for signal work on the authority’s commuter rail and subway lines. In one case, we reduced a $15 million claim by roughly 75 percent after four days of mediated negotiations.
  • On behalf of a precast concrete producer, we obtained a jury award of the entire $1.5 million delay and disruption claim it brought for work on a major Boston office building. We have also defended corporate owners from these types of claims.
  • We defended redevelopment authorities against administrative protests filed by unsuccessful bidders for work on major public construction projects, such as the development of a convention center and a medical complex.
  • On behalf of a construction management and design firm, we helped remove the HVAC subcontractor on a renovation project for a university art museum and negotiated a favorable settlement with the performance bond surety.

Land Valuation Disputes

For more than forty years, Foley Hoag has handled disputes over the adequacy of eminent domain-taking awards and the fairness of real estate tax assessments. Representing both property owners and government entities, we work with leading valuation experts to defend our clients’ interests.

Members of Foley Hoag’s Construction and Development Disputes Group have tried high-stakes cases involving properties throughout Massachusetts. Additionally, we are able to draw on the practical expertise of group members, such as the former Chief of Staff and Chief Legal Counsel for the Central Artery/Tunnel (CAT) Project and the former Right of Way Manager for the CAT Project. Both have first-hand experience with major public takings and continue to provide transactional advice on takings to state transportation and municipal redevelopment authorities. This mix of practical experience and courtroom skill makes Foley Hoag uniquely positioned among Massachusetts firms to manage and resolve your land-valuation disputes.

Our takings cases have involved both developed and undeveloped parcels, including everything from factory buildings, freight yards, suburban roadsides and other parcels. Our property-tax cases have involved properties as diverse as shipyards, parking structures, cellular telephone systems, restaurants and 1000-foot natural-gas tankers. Examples of our activities include:

  • Recently represented a landowner in a trial over the valuation of a ten-acre parcel of land taken to expand a public park in the greater Boston area. We won a jury verdict more than twice the size of the taking authority’s original award.
  • Represent a municipal redevelopment authority in connection with its development of a new medical center, which has involved more than twenty takings, many of which are awaiting trial.
  • Acted as counsel to a generating subsidiary of a gas and electric company in a constitutional challenge to property taxation of a hydroelectric generating plant in Vermont.
  • Advised a natural gas pipeline company for more than a decade in property-tax cases before the Appellate Tax Board and the Supreme Judicial Court.
  • Represented a municipal assessing department in defending the assessments on a number of major office towers. Our defense of the assessment on one such tower involved a multi-week trial and successful defense of an appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court.
  • Represent a state transportation authority in litigation concerning the eminent domain taking of five acres of land abutting a state turnpike. The former landowner claims to have suffered $3.5 million in damages and is appealing from the jury verdict we obtained at trial, which awarded him a small fraction of that amount.

Land Title and Title Insurance Disputes

Foley Hoag represents major national title insurance companies, and we have successfully litigated many title insurance disputes. These cases include disputes regarding the title itself, disputes over title insurance coverage and disputes arising from fraudulently obtained title insurance.

Examples of our land-title disputes experience include:

  • When a client learned that one of its agents had taken premiums from property owners without writing policies, we brought suit against the agent, forced the production of thousands of related documents and resolved claims brought by affected property owners.
  • On behalf of a real estate services company, its subsidiaries and their predecessors, we have defended numerous title claims relating to a parcel on Martha’s Vineyard, which was originally planned for residential cluster housing and is now planned for a golf course.
  • Representing the insured parties of a leading title insurance company, we defended corporations, merchants associations and other individuals with title to properties as diverse as condominium complexes, a commercial building in Boston’s Chinatown district and single- and multi-family residences.

Real Estate and Land-Use Development Disputes

Foley Hoag’s Construction and Development Disputes lawyers handle a broad variety of cases arising from disputes over options, letters of intent, purchase and sale and other agreements, and leases and financing arrangements relating to real estate. Some examples of these cases, which frequently involve claims of fraud, breach of contract or breach of fiduciary duties, include:

  • Defended the owner of an office tower in Boston against multi-million dollar claims relating to the rehabilitation of the property.
  • Brought suit on behalf of the parent company of a nationwide drugstore chain to force the sale of property under an option agreement, allowing construction of a new store.
  • Represented a prominent coffee store chain in a lease dispute involving commercial space on Boston’s Newbury Street.
  • Represented a financial services provider in litigation against an all-risks insurance carrier involving a “sinking” office building in Chicago, securing a multi-million dollar favorable settlement.
  • Advised a regional savings bank in a variety of real estate-related disputes concerning a multi-unit residential development, including lending and foreclosure litigation.
  • On behalf of a major national bank, we initiated a novel foreclosure proceeding in Massachusetts Land Court designed to comply with California law, won summary judgment in a counter-suit filed by the bank’s debtor, and forced the sale of commercial property to help satisfy the debtor’s multi-million dollar debt.
  • Represented a serials management company in a non-judicial foreclosure proceeding in California.

In addition, Foley Hoag has decades of experience representing both developers and opponents of development in a variety of administrative and courtroom settings. Drawing on the firm’s environmental and real estate departments, the Construction and Development Disputes Group can help you navigate the local, state and federal regulatory landscape for development. Here are some representative examples of our work:

  • For fifteen years, on behalf of a financial services group, its subsidiaries and their predecessors, we prosecuted and defended a variety of litigation arising out of the development of a 235-acre parcel on Martha’s Vineyard, which was originally planned for residential housing and is now planned for a golf course.
  • Obtained and helped enforce a court order against the Town of Wakefield, on behalf of a construction company, to prevent a public drainage system from creating new “wetlands” on our client’s property, which would have affected the property’s value.
  • Represented a municipal redevelopment authority in litigation with a neighboring town over traffic control measures and other terms and conditions of a planned office park development.
  • Represented a land conservation organization in regulatory proceedings concerning the expansion of a Conrail transfer facility and in litigation concerning the group’s acquisition of a 290-acre farm from the U.S. Farmers Home Administration.
  • When the buyers of an undeveloped lot in Cape Cod discovered that the seller, a residential development company, had conveyed lots too small to be developed under local zoning laws, we filed suit to enjoin future sales and forced the seller to deed sufficient additional property to allow development.

Representative Experience

Public Owners: Using sophisticated critical-path analyses, we defended a public transportation authority against delay and disruption claims on diverse projects ranging from housing projects, dormitories and university facilities to subways and railroads.

Private Owners: When disputes arose between our client and the co-owner of a 100-mile natural-gas pipeline regarding who was responsible for paying more than $15 million in construction cost overruns, we initiated successful litigation limiting our client's exposure; and we negotiated a favorable settlement.

Contractors and Subcontractors: We represented the structural steel contractor for a multi-million dollar high-rise office building in New York City when disputes arose with the building's owner, the construction manager, the erection subcontractor, and the performance and payment bond sureties.