Joseph A. Ferrentino

Partner

After plaintiffs brought a motion to compel a mass arbitration for 48 homes in a construction defect action, Joe Ferrentino, Jessica Daley, and Shaia Araghi prevailed in convincing the court to order the plaintiffs to proceed to arbitration on a single home by home basis. The homeowners will not be able to litigate as one large group and instead will need to bring their actions separately if they choose to do so.

After negotiating a multi-million dollar settlement with fourteen homeowners and two homeowners’ associations damaged from a landslide in the City of Orange, Joe Ferrentino and Greg Dillion represented a homebuilder in a five-month trial against the City of Anaheim, which owned a reservoir that leached water into the neighboring slope.  The jury awarded over $25 million to Newmeyer Dillion's client and its homeowners.

The owners of 28 homes in Oxnard filed a construction defect lawsuit against a national homebuilder alleging defects in virtually every component of the home.  Joe Ferrentino and Len Polyakov represented the homebuilder at trial.  The homeowners sought over $50,000 per home in damages.  After a three-week trial, the jury returned a complete defense verdict and Newmeyer Dillion's client recovered over $100,000 in costs from the homeowners.

Following the representation of a homebuilder in a construction defect case, Joe Ferrentino and Greg Dillion represented the builder in a bad faith lawsuit against Farmers Insurance Company due to Farmer’s failure to provide the homebuilder with a defense.  The homebuilder was owed $1 million in defense fees.  Following a trial, the jury awarded the homebuilder $1 million in compensatory damages and another $25 million in punitive damages.  Unfortunately, the Court then reduced the punitive damage award to $1 million.

Joe Ferrentino and Ben Ammerman represented the owner of a custom home in a very exclusive neighborhood in Orange County.  The home was suffering from damage due to settlement of the soil below the home.  The firm recovered $800,000 to repair the home for the client from the soils engineer, general contractor, and pool installer, among others.

Overview Joe Ferrentino defended a top five national homebuilder in a construction defect litigation claim involving high-end homes in Ladera Ranch. The bench trial involved 19 homes where homeowners claimed defects from the dirt to the roofs and started trial with a cost of repair estimate of almost $2.7 million. To add to the complexity, the homes were mixed between being covered by the Right to Repair Act and pre-dating the Act. Because the homes looked beautiful, Joe convinced the judge to inspect each of the homes herself.  After visiting the homes and over 20 days of testimony, Newmeyer Dillion’s client completely defensed the claims of seven homes and the Court agreed with the scope of repair offered by the defense on the remaining homes.  The cost of repair for the remaining twelve homes will be well below the offer made and should result in ND’s client recovering most of its trial costs. Read the full story here.

An owner of student housing a few blocks from Cal Poly San Louis Obispo modified the apartment units during the summer to fit more students without obtaining the proper permits and violated the Building Code. These code violations created fire hazards and water leaks.  Joe Ferrentino filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of 500 student tenants.  He took the case to the local press and after hearing of the lawsuit, the City of San Luis Obispo ordered the apartment owner to immediately repair the units and obtain the proper permits.  Shortly thereafter, the apartment owner agreed to settle with the student tenants to reimburse them a portion of their rent.

A national homebuilder hired ND to recover defense fees from five insurance carriers and several subcontractors that had breached their duty to provide a defense.  Joe Ferrentino pursued these insures in federal court and the subcontractors in state court and recovered millions of dollars in defense and bad faith damages from the insurers and subcontractors.

Joe Ferrentino and Jeff Brower represented developers against class action claims involving copper pipe in hundreds of homes throughout Rancho Santa Margarita, Fullerton, and San Clemente.  The homeowners claim that their copper pipes were corroding due to a chemical reaction between the local water and the copper pipe.  ND asserted that class action claims are not allowed under the Right to Repair Act.  After several years of litigation, the trial Court finally agreed with the defense position.  The class action claimants have now appealed the decision of the trial court and the firm handling the appeal.

After purchasing a 19,000+ square foot home in beautiful Rancho Santa Fe, the purchaser discovered that the decks and arches in the home leaked severely.  Joe Ferrentino represented the purchaser against the seller as well as the general contractor and subcontractors who built the home.  He successfully recovered the amount needed to repair the leaky conditions.