Of course, being sued over construction work isn’t restricted just to homebuilders. Two lawyers, and a third as moderator, gave advice on how to stay out of court in a seminar by that same name. Brenda Radmacher from California and Andrew Gold from Miami sprinted through a lot of information, and as testimony to their directness, I can say that I only got cross-eyed once trying to decipher the legalese on their visual slides.

Moderator David Jaffee opened the seminar with the less-than good news that the last 12 years have seen an increase in construction defect litigation. Of course, the biggest and badest player is the dreaded mold. A recent California court decision awarded $27 million in bodily injury award due to mold on lumber.

Brenda’s theme was that you should always remember that you are dealing with people, and that most of the time people don’t want to be in a conflict. Bottom line: there’s lots of ways to mollify a disgruntled customer, and lots of ways to really make matters worse. The biggest no-no is to dismiss the initial complaint and ignore the homeowner’s concerns.

When such cases go to trial, the fact that the builder was initially dismissive and tried to merely put a band-aid on the problem makes the jury mad. And you don’t want that. Brenda said that studies show that 85% of jurors make up their mind about guilt or innocence within the first 5 minutes of a trial. I suppose such efficient use of mental faculties allows for increased naptime during the rest of the trial.

Andrew said that the secret to staying out of court is not to sell to crazy homebuyers. This tongue-in-cheek advice acknowledged that once in a while, you will find yourself dealing with a person who is completely unreasonable. The best approach is to make sure your customer service people are properly trained to avoid this deadly mistake. In fact, you should institute a lawsuit avoidance-training program with all your people.

They presented lots of other information, and I’ll try to report on that later. One bit of advice they two gave that you should take heed of immediately is to know that your nasty email messages among your coworkers will wind up in the plaintiff’s hands come court time. You can’t completely delete them, and please don’t ever try to or shred documents because that only makes matters worse. Best practice is to consider that every email you send is going to be shown to the world. So, don't put your true thoughts in writing if they aren't nice.