The Legal Risks of Building Green

Building green can open the door to plenty of legal pitfalls, a new study warns. The study, by Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law & Policy Clinic and sponsored by Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox, a Philadelphia law firm, says that green building raises a number of liability questions. Already, according to Robert Fox, a managing partner with the Philadelphia firm, a number of legal disputes have arisen in the area of green building. “We’re seeing the litigation starting now, and my sense is that there will be more as the government is imposing this as a requirement,” he said, referring to increasing mandates or incentives by governments at all levels to encourage green building practices. According to Mr. Fox, the first lawsuit related to LEED, a green-building certification standard, occurred in Maryland, where a new condominium failed to get LEED certification and a certificate of occupancy in time to get substantial tax credits associated with green building. A legal dispute ensued between the developer and the general contractor and was later settled out of court. Another case, in Albuquerque, shows the potential for conflicts between local and state or federal green building regulations, Mr. Fox said. In response to a filing by the Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, a federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction that prevented the city of Albuquerque from enforcing its energy code. The judge found that federal statute pre-empted the regulation of heating and air conditioning by the local authority. A final decision is yet to come, according to Mr. Fox...NYTimes