Jul 28, 2002 - California attorney Thomas Miller seems like an unlikely supporter of efforts to protect developers from construction-defect lawsuits.
Yet Miller, a veteran litigator who has built a career on taking builders to court, says he is rooting from the sidelines.
Miller, whose defect claims have won hundreds of millions of dollars for clients over the past decade, endorses the use of "third- party" inspectors to document sound construction practices. And he says he doesn't mind that the purpose of such inspections is to make it tough for people like him to prove that building flaws exist.
"I think it is a great thing," Miller said. "If more builders did this, there would be less litigation and a lot less construction defects."
Inspectors -- who pride themselves on their role as independent observers -- are well aware that their efforts can be turned against their builder clients. "That is one of the critical issues in managing the inspection process and something we have struggled with," said Barbara Murray, president of West Coast Property Consultants. "It could definitely be misused by the other side. No one is saying you could walk through a construction site and find that everything was perfect."
About 70 percent of Miller's cases involve attached housing. He says that most builders he is familiar with have yet to embrace third-party inspections. When he does encounter a claim where private inspectors were used, "the type of defects we see are not as significant."
Miller foresees a day when builders will tout their use of third- party inspectors as a marketing tool. He envisions it as sort of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.
"The home buyer really has nowhere to turn to find who is producing a better product," Miller said. "There is no Consumer Reports on home builders."
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