One of the expert companies that we use, Pete Fowler Construction Services, Inc., recently put on an outstanding presentation called "Introduction to Roofing." It was very informative, even if thached roofs are no longer common in our area. he identified most of the common roofing related defects fewquently asserted in constrcution defect litigaiton.
Pete's company takes an unusual appoach to these cases. Often, experts for a subcontracting trade simply note alleged defects in a project and explain that "some other dude did it." In criminal law this is called
the SODDI defense and it's usually not convincing unless your first two initials are "O" and "J." Pete's crew doesn't just focus on the work of the subcontracting trade they are representing. Instead they look at the whole project, identify the "mechanism of failure" whcih means that not only is that SODDI specifically identified, but how that dude did it is also demonstrated. This is extremely effective, and I really appreciate their work. Their method backfires only when they tell me my own guy did it. I hate it when that happens!
I wish there was more good information out there people- particularly consumers- to be able to learn about the dangers of bad roofers or poor workmanship.
Posted by: roof_blog | February 05, 2005 at 07:01 PM