New Jersey Court Clarifies Trigger Dates for Statute of Repose in Construction Defect Actions
New Jersey v. Perini Corp., 425 N.J. Super. 62 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2012),
In this case, a New Jersey appellate panel clarified the trigger date for the ten-year statute of repose for construction litigation, N.J.S.A. 2A:14-1.1. The Court held that the statute of repose is triggered upon substantial completion of the project, however, the Court recognized that there can be separate trigger dates for subcontractors that have substantially completed all of their work on the project prior to the completion of the project as a whole. For these subcontractors, the Court held that the statute of repose “runs from the completion of that contractor’s entire work on the ‘improvement,’ not from discrete tasks” performed by the subcontractor. New Jersey, 2012 WL 1057939 at *6.