re: WWL 870 at noon today has 1031 Canal Development explaining Hard Rock collapse

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Ultimately the Developer hires the Architects, Engineers, and Contractors right? Should the Developer be totally unaccountable for a failure like this? Pretty sure that's not how it works legally although they may be starting his Criminal Defense in that interview.

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Kailas, himself, is not the developer. He is part of the group. Protected by the LLC and all that comes with that.

Unless you can prove Kailas, or even the engineers, did something malicious the chances of criminal charges are super slim.

The developer will be given some share of liability, but if they didn't take part in the construction or engineering their fault will probably stop at not reviewing the engineering.

People will be all kinds of pissed if/when Kailas walks away with the property and no real liability.

His lawyer said they wanted to settle quickly. He also doesn't believe they are at fault. So settling when you have no fault is really easy.

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Kailas probably ain't going to jail, but he needs to be prepared to lose a lot of cheddar over this

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Up to the applicable insurance limits and/or the assets that are in the 1031 Canal Development, LLC. Shielding oneself from Personally liability is the whole reason entities like LLC’s are formed on the first place.

Unless Kailas is shown to have done something exposing himself to criminal liability and then potentially allowing the LLC’s corporate veil to be pierced (which is very difficult to do) the above is the whole pot of gold the plaintiff lawyers are fighting over- nothing more nothing less.

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People will be all kinds of pissed if/when Kailas walks away with the property and no real liability.

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Probably but given his role, at least what we know, in this whole thing he likely has little to no liability.

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His lawyer said they wanted to settle quickly

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I'm sure they do. A large chunk of the current liability is due to business interruptions. The longer that goes on, the larger the bill gets.

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He also doesn't believe they are at fault.

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What would you expect the lawyer to say?

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I would think people will understand. It looks bad for Kailas right now because he has a criminal past

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Does he? I thought that was part of his family that did.

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but maybe it's on one of the subcontractors or the architect, no one knows at this point.

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The way he was talking yesterday they have enough info to put it on the Citadel.

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Does he? I thought that was part of his family that did.

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the son Praveen Kailas was charged with conspiracy and theft of public funds in 2012, convicted, and then at his sentencing, the judge ripped his dad Mohan Kailas (developer for 1031 Canal St project) a new a-hole, saying that he let his son take the fall for his crimes.

that's according to WWL at least

Saw a few friends on this list I wasn’t expecting to see.

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Sounds like he knows how to protect himself.

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Well he does have a law degree

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Saw a few friends on this list I wasn’t expecting to see.

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Her whole list is incredible. $6.5 million in 5,000 and 2,500 dollar increments. Kailas was one of the biggest if not the biggest. Motwani up there as well. Literally hundreds of developers, contractors, architects, engineers etc. Not that there's anything wrong with donating to political candidates. You gotta tip hat to Latoya for raising so much.

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The way he was talking yesterday they have enough info to put it on the Citadel.

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Of course he will say that, but there could be a lot of liability to spread around among the owner/developer, contractor, subcontractors, suppliers, and fabricators. The owner/developer might not emerge unscathed depending on the facts.

One issue here is that Denzel Clark, president of Citadel, is a member of the owner/developer entity. We can assume Kailas is the manager of that entity and that Clark is a member with a minority interest. If the project was behind schedule and/or over budget, and/or if Citadel acted under direction from the owner to accelerate and/or cut costs, and/or the owner directed the design team to modify its design accordingly, and/or Citadel failed to construct the project per plans and specs ... well, it's a lot to straighten out.

Other variables are the surety and insurers for Citadel.

Bonding companies don't accept claims under performance bonds for shits and giggles, and insurance companies don't pay uninsured claims (e.g., gross negligence or intentional fault) and they don't pay claims just because a building collapsed and people died. They all investigate and dispute liability if there are grounds to do so.

If the bonding company does accept the claim and takes over the job, it will seek indemnity from Citadel's principal(s) and the liability will end up with them regardless, so they sure want to explore every defense available.

To my perspective, the biggest issue with the overall response to this disaster is you don't have strong city leaders who have experience with the myriad issues involved and therefore don't know the questions to ask or even the possible courses of action.

Say what you want about Mitch, but he'd never get pushed around like this.