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What Has ASLA Done For You Lately?02-09-07 | News

What Has ASLA Done For You Lately?




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Beginning January 2007, public entities cannot include certain indemnity provisions which require the design professional to indemnify the public entity for anything other than the design professional's own negligence, recklessness, or willful misconduct. That essentially meant that the design professionals effectively insure the public entity against damages, and may have to pay compensation in case of any lawsuits.


Landscape architects are included in?????EUR??,,?EUR a New California law that limits design-firm contract risk. Assembly Bill (?EUR??,,????'??AB?EUR??,,????'??) 573, signed September 25, 2006 by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will have significant implications on bidding for public works projects.

AB 573, authored by Assembly Member Lois Wolk (D ?EUR??,,????'??? Vacaville), did not include landscape architects even though the committee had originally agreed to do so. The bill?EUR??,,????'???s final language left them out. ). The California Council of Landscape Architects (CCASLA) lobbied strongly to have Landscape Architects written back into this legislation as agreed. The Board of CCASLA has representatives from all 4 of the California Chapters of ASLA, passed unanimously in both the California State Assembly (78-0 vote) and the California State Senate (37-0 vote) as a direct result of CCASLA?EUR??,,????'???s timely and powerful intervention, which is precisely what the SCCASLA dues pay for?EUR??,,????'??+to keep a lobbyist looking out for YOUR interests.

AB 573 reads: ”[f]or all contracts, and amendments thereto, entered into on or after January 1, 2007, with a public agency for design professional services, all provisions, clauses, covenants, and agreements contained in, collateral to, or affecting any such contract, and amendments thereto, that purport to indemnify, including the cost to defend, the public agency by a design professional against liability for claims against the public agency, are unenforceable, except for claims that arise out of, pertain to, or relate to the negligence, recklessness, or willful misconduct of the design professional.”

The bill defines “design professional” to include licensed architects, registered professional engineers, licensed professional land surveyors and landscape architects, all as defined under current law. The bill defines public agency as “any county, city, city and county, district, school district, public authority, municipal corporation, or other political subdivision, joint powers authority, or public corporation in the state” except for the State of California.

This is a great victory for Landscape Architects and great work by the CCASLA and our state lobbyist, Terri Thomas.

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