News & Highlights

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GTH partner Valarie Zeeck explains Initiative 1433, Washington’s new paid leave law

Washington’s new paid leave law is generating a lot of questions and commentary as employers prepare to implement the law, which becomes effective on January 1, 2018. Initiative 1433 will require all Washington employers to provide paid sick leave to all non-exempt employees, including full-time, part-time and temporary workers.  The law will require many employers to adopt or modify existing leave policies.  

In addition, employers will still be required to comply with local city laws, such as the Tacoma and Seattle paid leave ordinances, which impose additional requirements on employers in some instances.

Learn more about the new paid leave law that becomes effective January 1, 2018 in the article below.

 

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GTH Seattle Partner Mike Ricketts speaks to Super Lawyers about insurance coverage and being legally prepared

“Earthquake insurance is kind of like flood insurance: you’re not going to be required to have it—lenders will take the risk that it won’t happen in our lifetimes—but a sophisticated entity will probably have that type of policy,” Ricketts says.

“Everyone is waiting for the big one and we have to be prepared, but I don’t know that people will buy insurance for that because it’ll be an unprecedented event, if and when that should happen. … If it’s a total disaster, people typically don’t buy insurance that covers the value of a building falling down. It’s not like you turn it over to the insurance company and they take care of it; they only take care of a portion of your loss.”

Excerpt from Super Lawyer article written by Judy Malmon

For more information click on link below

 

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Dianne K. Conway settles neighbor dispute with unique solution

GTH Partner Dianne K. Conway was retained by local homeowners in July 2017 to represent them in a pending lawsuit regarding enforcement of a 2015 settlement agreement that resolved boundary line and invasion of privacy disputes with their neighbors.  The settlement agreement and resulting judgment transferred a small strip of each party’s property to the other; the agreement also included an anti-harassment clause.  When Dianne’s clients sought to refinance their property shortly after the settlement and related judgment were finalized, they learned there was a pre-existing lien on the portion of property transferred to them under the settlement agreement that would prevent any refinance or sale of their property until it was cleared.  The neighbors subsequently refused to cooperate with obtaining a release of the lien from the portion of property that they had granted to Dianne’s clients.

The neighbors’ obstruction resulted in more than a year delay in the clients’ refinance and considerable attorney fees and other costs before the clients were able to get the lien removed. Thereafter, the clients sought recovery of these fees and costs from the neighbors under the settlement agreement. Dianne was able to get the neighbors to agree to mediation and, if that was not successful, binding arbitration. During and preceding mediation, it became evident that the clients were more concerned about the neighbors being held accountable in some fashion than recovering of the costs they had incurred.  The neighbors, on the other hand, were very opposed to conceding anything to Dianne’s clients.

In the end, the mediator and parties came up with a decidedly unique resolution:  Each party agreed to donate $5,000 to a local charity that is near and dear to Dianne’s clients. This satisfied our clients’ concern that the neighbors be held accountable for their lack of good faith cooperation yet also let the neighbors feel that they hadn’t conceded anything to Dianne’s clients.  The parties also added more “teeth” to the anti-harassment provision of the settlement agreement, which will hopefully help end the ongoing harassment. Overall, this creative solution both resolved an otherwise intractable dispute and benefitted the community at large. 

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GTH client Shadrach White, CEO of cloudPWR, highlighted in #startupseverywhere article.

GTH is proud of Shadrach White’s efforts to promote technology startups in Tacoma.

“We participate in local networking events and help promote the city as a business friendly ecosystem for technology-focused startups. For example, we participated in a youtube video series as part of this marketing effort”, said Shadrach.

Excerpt from: Engine, #STARTUPSEVERYWHERE article by Monica Laufer.

 

 

 

 

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