Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, Rudy tries to tackle his contractor after 3 years of hard work

Few people believed that "5 foot nothing, 100 and nothing" Rudy Ruettiger could walk onto the football field at Notre Dame and ever play a second of college football. Well, Rudy proved 'em wrong. Showed up every day, practiced with heart, "played like a champion" and at the end of his senior season, they let him on the field for a minute.

He just wishes his contractor would build his multi-million dollar home with the same level of "heart" (LV Sun):

Motivational speaker Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger is suing a contractor over problems with a $5.3 million house he's building in Las Vegas.

Ruettiger, his wife, Cheryl Ruettiger, and their Henderson company, Rudy International Motivational Speaking Ltd., filed suit in Clark County District Court on Tuesday against Premier Building Group Inc. of Las Vegas.

The suit says the Ruettigers purchased land at 22 Olympia Hills Circle in the Southern Highlands community and in January 2006 hired Premier to build a home there with a maximum budget of $5.3 million.

Ruettiger, the inspiration for the 1993 Notre Dame football movie "Rudy," claims in the lawsuit that construction of the home has been marred by problems and that the contractor failed to complete and then abandoned the project.

And what attorney has enough heart to represent Rudy? It's James W Pengilly of Pengilly Robbins Slater. Give it all you've got Mr. Pengilly. If you try hard enough and work hard enough, there's a good chance Jon Favreau will show up at the trial and yell "Who's the wild man now?!?" Go get 'em tiger.

Update on the Construction Defect Plaintiff's Firm Ethics Investigation

Oh construction defect, it's the never-ending billable generating area of Nevada practice. Put 30 attorneys around a table and have them play solitaire while a framing expert goes on and on about nails and your firm earns some nice coin.

It's so rarely that CD attorneys are bold enough to get a posting on the blog. That's why WWL has been so impressed with the [now dissolved] law firm of Quon, Bruce and Christensen (website closed, but firm description here).

For those of you not familiar with the millionaire CD Plaintiff's powerhouse law firm, here's the description by KLAS' Geroge Knapp (Las Vegas City Life):

Until last fall, this firm was one of the most successful in Las Vegas, specializing in sticking up for poor little homeowners who had to fight against big, evil developers. The lawyers made millions, especially telegenic Nancy Quon, who for the past few years has hosted a TV show on the city of Las Vegas channel, a program that offered advice to homeowners and homeowner associations.

So why close the doors on such a successful firm? Well, it might have something to do with the federal investigation into [alleged] corruption on local homeowners association boards. Knapp reports that:

Federal agents and Metro detectives think Quon and others orchestrated the takeover of several HOA boards in order to earn millions of dollars on construction defects lawsuits filed on behalf of residents. In addition, the conspirators allegedly siphoned away millions more by funneling all construction repairs through companies controlled by Leon Benzer, who has been, uh, very close to Ms. Quon.It's been months since any news about the HOA investigation has surfaced. Nervous homeowners and other victims are worried the whole thing has been dropped and that Quon and a few others will be allowed to sail off into the sunset to spend their loot on a tropical isle somewhere. Although Quon's law practice is now kaput, the investigation is ongoing.(LVCL)

Turns out the investigation may be picking up according to KLAS reports:

Working in concert, police detectives and FBI agents have been sifting through
mountains of financial records and legal documents seized from several HOA's
around the valley. . .

But the [alleged] scam may not be completely out of business:

At least one of her partners relocated to Florida, which is where a management
company named Platinum Services has also opened an office. Platinum managed
several of the HOA's where problems occurred.

Damn it. How dare Florida try to intrude on our unethical territory? For years Nevada's been the place where doctors and attorneys found inadequate in other states could relocate to. Florida's making a play for our brand of corrupt legal practice. The Nevada Bar better relax the ethical rules a little more.

On a serious note, the only reason the collapse of a multi-million dollar law firm [allegedly] due to a pending corruption investigation isn't the biggest story of the year is that it's a CD firm. Yawn.

[hat tip to Mr. Knapp and KLAS for the outstanding continuing coverage]

CD Attorneys: Start Your Engines

Apparently, size does matter. The proposed 49-story Harmon hotel at City Center has been decapitated due to improperly installed rebar on 15 floors of the building currently under construction. Designed by "British superstar architect" Lord Norman Foster, the building will now be capped at 28 stories, which, as you can see, looks ridiculous. From the LV Sun:

It's still unclear how Harmon will be capped, and what reengineering will be required for such infrastructure elements as elevators and vents. If the Harmon's exterior isn't significantly redesigned, it risks looking unmistakably out of proportion. Think 28 oz. of tomatoes squished into a 16 oz. can.

We weap weep for all the bankrupted contractors/subcontractors who will be left in the wake of this mess.

(LV Sun; spellcheck)

Midweek Roundup

Looks like this Construction Defect Home Owners' Association/politician/attorney scandal is heating up and will be high drama. A retired Las Vegas police officer named in the allegations of corruption committed suicide yesterday. (Review-Journal)

In the Endoscopy/Dr. "Needles" Desai civil matter, Judge Earl ordered that Dr. Needles and the other [alleged] scumbag greedy physicians who handed out free Hep-C to their patients will be deposed. (RJ) Although, I am guessing there will be a record number of times a deponent takes the 5th in each deposition.

Congratulations to Laura Bielinski, Christopher Kircher, Erin Lewis and Zachary Takos, who were named associates at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. (RJ)

Meanwhile, Harmful Error continues its coverage of the impending judicial election [now 100% Halverson free!] (Harmful Error)

Is there any part of Vegas not steeped in corruption?

The Construction Defect world of Vegas law is apparently abuzz over rumors that the FBI is investigating alleged conflict of interest issues with how Home Owners' Associations bring construction defect lawsuits. There are rumors that a few Construction Defect Plaintiff's firms may go down over some insider dealing.

Las Vegas Now reports:

Investigators already see a pattern, whereby the same law firms file
construction defect lawsuits, the same contractors are hired to do the work, the
same management company oversees the whole thing, and the homeowner boards are subjected to something like a political coup.
The elections, homeowners say, are rigged.

Nice. Maybe the Feds won't screw this one up like they did with the Noel Gage trial and the Nevada Bar might get rid of a few of its schiestiest members.

$4 Million in CD verdict ain't peanuts . . . but . . .

When is a $4 million verdict embarrassingly low? When it's a Construction Defect verdict where Plaintiffs' attorneys had been requesting $70 million.

The Review-Journal reports:

What trial attorneys once billed as the largest construction-defect lawsuit in Nevada's history posted less-impressive results after a jury delivered its verdict Wednesday.
A $70 million case filed against Del Webb Communities in 2003 yielded just $4 million in damages, with a jury in Clark County District Court deciding that only 70 of nearly 1,000 homeowners named in the lawsuit merited compensation.

Ouch. Who was the big "losing" firm only garnering $4 mil for the Plaintiffs? That would be Los Angeles-based firm Wolf Rifkin Shapiro Schulman & Rabkin:

When Wolf Rifkin Shapiro Schulman & Rabkin filed the case five years ago, the lawsuit involved more than 1,400 homes in Sun City Summerlin. The plaintiffs alleged that Del Webb failed to install metal screeds that would protect homes from water damage, and that cracked stucco, mold and weakened walls resulted. Plaintiffs' attorneys said each home would require $50,000 in repairs; they also sought class action status involving all 7,800 homes in Sun City Summerlin, a move that could have led to damages of "several hundred million dollars," they said. But they didn't win class action status. So nearly 1,000 homeowners sued individually, and most of them received no damages.

Another L.A. firm goes down in flames in a Nevada court. Hmm . . . not to take away from the excellent CD defense work in this matter, but I'm thinking there may still be some home court advantage for Vegas attorneys.