J. Sweet – Legal Aspects of Architecture, Engineering and the Construction Process (8th edition)

Автор: J. Sweet
Название книги: Legal Aspects of Architecture, Engineering and the Construction Process
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Юриспруденция и право
Страницы: 1089
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

The primary focus of this text is to provide a bridge for students between the academic world and the real world. This bridge is built through an understanding of what is law, how law is created, how law affects almost every activity of human conduct, and how legal institutions operate. Intended mainly for architectural and engineering students, but increasingly for those in business schools and law schools, this text features a clear, concise, and jargon-free presentation. It probes beneath the surface of legal rules and uncovers why these rules developed as they did, outlines arguments for and against these rules, and examines how they work in practice. Updated with the most recent developments in the legal aspects of architectural, engineering, and the construction processes, this text is also a valuable reference for practitioners that has been cited in over twenty-five court decisions.

The primary focus of this edition, as in editions that preceded
it, is to provide a bridge for students, mainly architectural
and engineering students, but increasingly, those
in business schools and law schools, between the academic
world and the real world. We hope to provide a cushion
for the inevitable shock such a transition generates. The
world of the classroom, with its teachers and its books, is
not the same as the world of construction with its developers,
owners, design professionals, contractors, building
inspectors, loan offi cers, and public offi cials that regulate
the construction process.
This cushion requires that readers understand what is
law, how it is created, how it affects almost every activity
of human conduct, and how legal institutions operate.
This cannot be accomplished through simply stating
“the law.” It requires clear, concise, jargon-free text that
probes beneath the surface of legal rules to uncover why
these rules developed as they did, outline arguments for
and against these rules, and examine how they work in
practice.
This is a national textbook. We do not concentrate
on the law of any particular state. It is diffi cult to state an
American rule with fi fty states and a federal jurisdiction.
A few areas of law that are relevant to the Construction
Process are exclusively regulated by federal law.1 Yet most
disputes are governed by the law of each state. This does
not mean that there are fi fty rules. Those who survey the
cases will find that there is a majority rule and one or
more minority rules. We will try to emphasize the majority
rule without ignoring that some states have provided a different
legal solution
We provide many illustrations of how the legal rules
operate through summaries of actual cases and reproduction
of some cases. We do this to demonstrate how legal
rules work in practice, how most disputes are resolved by
the facts in the case, and, in the case of actual judicial
opinions, how judges decide cases.
Describing legal rules and how they operate is not an
in-depth or exhaustive treatment of something as complex
as Construction Law. Footnotes are one way to at
least hint at greater complexity. With this in mind, let us
express our footnote philosophy.
The primary role of footnotes is to provide authority
for textual statements that we believe require documentation.
Another function is to indicate a deeper level of
complexity of a legal problem without detracting from
the primary explanation provided in the text. This leads
to a third function of footnotes: to provide references
that will enable the student, the researcher, or the practicing
attorney to dig more deeply into a particular legal
problem.
Footnote references can be statutes, regulations, or
cases. In addition to these primary sources of law, references
can include the burgeoning secondary literature,
texts and legal journals, that examine Construction Law in
depth and from a practical perspective. Finally, references
can include techniques used by Standard Construction
Documents that have suggested solutions for many legal
and practical problems