Curtis W. Martin, a partner in the firm’s Houston office, authored an article in the AGC of America Newsletter, Volume 3, Issue 1, February 2017.  The article discusses the question of “who is responsible for defective design” under Texas law which has often been debated using either Lonergan (Contractor) or Spearin (Owner).  However, the recent Fifth Circuit opinion in INET  offers a different view on this issue, “instead of focusing on which party was responsible for overall design, the Fifth Circuit focused on the parties’ attempts (or failures) to resolve disputes on how to deal with the design defect,” taking the focus off of who’s to blame and identifying how to fix the problem.

http://consensusdocs.org/cdocslawnews#Defective