April 16 was murder for a heap of legislation that failed to survive the deadline for bills to be voted out of their committee and house of origin.

In a relatively new process made necessary by the 120 day limit, all legislation had to be approved and passed to the other house by April 16 or be left behind.

Some construction-related bills that bit it:

Construction Defects:

AB 81 and SB 89. The trial lawyer’s version of construction defect reform. The bill featured onerous penalties for construction defects including triple damages, revocation of licenses, the contractor can be forced to pay for repairs, and they can drive you into bankruptcy yet still chase you down for a defect suit. About the only thing left out was the firing squad.

Lien Law Reform:

SB 370. This was the Construction Industry Coalition’s mechanics’ lien law reform bill. It died of suffocation; some heavyweight interests sat on it. The bill was withdrawn because it had no chance of survival with the resorts and other powerhouses against it.

SB 93: This is a bill that would have required any liens to reference other liens. The amount of research would have made a librarian dizzy. This bill actually passed out of the assembly, yet will probably be put back on the secretary’s desk (a way of saying it’s not going further).

The word is that there will be an interim committee on lien laws to study the problems and seek solutions. This has proven to work in the past with other issues, and allows the industry to come up with answers to some of the daunting issues. The only down side is that the process will take another two years.

OCIPS:

SB 44: The OCIPS bill would have limited an Owner-Controlled Insurance Program for worker’s compensation to a specific site, and brought the value of the project up to $250 million. The bill passed out of the senate, then simply passed out.

There just wasn’t any support for it, not from the Division of Insurance, not from the insurance industry, not from anyone. The DOI reported that they have not received a single complaint from any wrapped project in the state, and this went a long way to killing the idea that OCIPS had to be controlled.

Add to that the strong opposition that came from such interests as the home builders, the school district and the airport and you have one dead bill.

The rules for these OCIPS include a full-time safety person and claims person on each site.

These bills are officially "dead," but the legislature can insert key provisions into other bills. The requirements for that is that the amendment be made in a law that addresses the same statute, so the chances of successfully reviving a dead bill are not that strong. Yet you never know.