Legal Question in Construction Law in California

I filed a stop notices to different addresses, owner, project mgr ect.. there was an accounting error on one of them so it appeared as two notices, I was notified of the error and fixed and sent an amended notice certified the same day, it was signed the next day.

The following day the company said to remove both notices and threatened me in an email that I won't see a pennie till maybe the end of the job, this is measure bond money ( Tax payer funds they control ) but the amended one was signed the day before this call. They are furious at me, I appologized for their circumstance and told them this is only chance I have to collect.

Now they say they will bond around my fraugelent claim and bill my account for the premium because utimately they do not want to pay, this is for a 12,000.00 legitamate claim on a construction site. This is a big company and I'm just a little independent person, will I even stand a chance of receiving funds without going broke if I have to fight them.

I know they have used these intimidating tactics and threats before and probably suceeded because it is alittle scary but, I can't bow to that or they will continue to do this. What do I do now.


Asked on 4/29/11, 10:53 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

It sounds as though you are on a public works project. Maybe you are accustomed to doing private jobs. Stop notices for public work are covered by a separate and somewhat different set of statutes. They are found in the Civil Code, sections 3179 to 3214. It wouldn't take you too long to look up and read these code sections. They're too long to quote here, but in under an hour of reading you'd have a better idea of how stop orders can be used when it is a project being paid for with tax dollars. The code can be found in a county law library, or on line at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/calaw.html

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Answered on 4/29/11, 12:25 pm


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