By: Abby S. Busler The Center for Disease Control (“CDC”) has issued 60 pages of detailed guidance to reopen businesses, health care facilities and providers, schools, transit, and other industries. This guidance also provides information regarding testing and data to assist with exposure and risk concerns for those industries. The following is...
Wisconsin’s New Safer At Home Order Alters Restrictions on Businesses
By: Sherry D. Coley and Tiffany E. Woelfel On April 16, 2020, Governor Evers and the Department of Health Services issued an extension to the Safer At Home Order. Emergency Order #28 will begin on April 24, 2020, and will continue until May 26, 2020, at 8 a.m., unless altered. The extended Order provides new restrictions on the number of...

To Keep Your Real Estate Deals Moving, Consider a Pause Provision
By: Robert W. Habich and Ethan C. Geis Within less than a month, the outbreak of COVID-19, and government countermeasures deployed to blunt its effect, has brought a vibrant economy grinding to a halt. In particular, what was a lively commercial real estate market buttressed by strong economic fundamentals, only weeks ago, is beginning to slow...
Are You an “Essential Business” in Wisconsin Under the Safer At Home Order?
By: Mark G. Kmiecik, Abby S. Busler and Ryan M. Spott The State of Wisconsin has joined several other states in shutting down all nonessential businesses with its newly issued Safer At Home Order, which is effective at 8:00 a.m on Wednesday, March 25, 2020, and will remain in effect until 8:00 a.m on Friday, April 24, 2020, or until a superseding...

Proceed, Pause or Be Damned? Immediate Construction Contract Considerations for Owners and Contractors
By: Matthew R. McClean COVID-19 is causing many of us to alter expectations. Many in the construction industry are confronting this reality and need to prepare for the potential legal implications. Construction businesses are looking at three significant, interrelated issues from virus’ impact: labor (having healthy, able workers available in the...
COVID-19 and Contract Enforceability
By: Daniel A. Kaminsky and Alexander T. Kay In the coming days, weeks, and months, it is likely that we will see failures to perform under contracts that are related to COVID-19 (e.g., failures to perform arising out of the ongoing temporary closures of businesses and institutions across the State of Wisconsin, the United States of America, and...

Technology Trends in Construction
By: Brian J. Pfeil Technology permeates all aspects of our society, so recognizing how technology impacts our roles as attorneys is critical to keeping pace with the world we live and work in. Technological advances have noticeably impacted the construction industry over the last 10-15 years, from the project’s design process toits actual...

EPA’s Updated Guidance Helpful to Buyers of Impacted WI Properties, but Wisconsin Still Lags Behind
Under current Wisconsin law, a property owner is generally liable for contamination regardless of when the pollution occurred and regardless of who caused the contamination. There are some limited exceptions for qualifying local governments, lenders, impacted neighbors and persons who obtain what is known as a Voluntary Party Liability...

Unlike Diamonds, Easements Are Not Always Forever
By: Brian J. Pfeil Easements are extremely common in our everyday life and serve an important role in offering access to otherwise inaccessible tracks of land due to boundary lines. Strip malls, shopping centers, multi-use buildings and other businesses often share parking lot space through an exchange of easements. Many of us access retail...

New Wetlands Permit Exemptions May Help Projects Avoid Getting Bogged Down
By: Ted A. Warpinski As many landowners, developers and builders know, having to obtain a permit to dredge or fill wetlands can cause substantial delays and increased costs. Some relief is now in sight with the recently enacted Wisconsin Act 183, which became fully effective on July 1, 2018. If the exemptions apply, all that is required is a...