Park Rise HOA v. Resource Construction (Colo. App. 2006)
The Colorado Court of Appeals addresses many construction-related issues in this case, including the following:
(1) The trial court ruled that the economic loss rule bars an HOA's negligence claims for construction defects against the general contractor. The Court of Appeals reversed based on previous cases limiting the application of the economic loss rule in residential construction defects cases.
(2) The Court of Appeals ruled that only latent construction defects were actionable under Cosmopolitan Homes, thus the jury must have some way of deciding what defects are latent. But the Court of Appeals held that expert testimony is not needed for this, rejecting the general contractor's argument to the contrary.
(3) The HOA settled with the developer, and the general contractor designated the developer as a non-party at fault. Thus, the jury could apportion damages between construction defects (the responsibility of the general contractor) and design flaws (the responsibility of the developer). The trial court, relying on Centric-Jones, entered directed verdict for the general contractor, concluding that the HOA did not present sufficient evidence to allow the jury to apportion damages among construction and design defects. The Court of Appeals disagreed, concluding that there was ample evidence for the jury to conclude that all of the damages were caused by construction defects.
(4) The Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's dismissal of the HOA's CCPA claim, holding that the reference to "quality construction" was mere puffing and not actionable under the CCPA. The Court of Appeals held that the "puffery doctrine" can apply to bar a CCPA claim, and felt comfortable enough to make that determination as a matter of law. Here is the language from the opinion that will likely be litigated the most after this case: "It represents a statement of opinion, the meaning of which would depend on the speaker’s frame of reference, such as mass produced housing versus a custom built home. It is not a specific representation of fact subject to measure or calibration."
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