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One of the biggest challenges to hit the global financial markets in recent years has been the induction of the COVID-19 virus. Businesses, supply chain disruption, employment, and contractual fulfillment have all been adversely affected, hopefully in the short term, putting commercial entities at risk and in many cases, disputes. Meeting contractual obligations during state-sponsored mandatory shut-downs is causing economic chaos in many quarters and none are more affected than ongoing projects underway in the construction industry. Delays and disruptions to planned business openings can have far-reaching effects on cash flow, commercial output, and create economic vulnerability to contractors, sub-contracted, property managers, suppliers, and developers. Contractors and employers seeking additional money or time in completing projects need the assistance of experienced construction law attorneys in making claims and understanding their contractual rights. At Heekin Law, P.A. our lead construction law attorneys, Geoff Heekin and Hunter Malin have over 45 years of shared construction law experience advising clients in all aspects of the construction industry. As these issues come to fruition, it is important to choose an attorney who understands the contractual and judicial actions involved in construction disputes and can navigate the complex interplay between all of the parties involved, pursuing a positive and durable outcome through negotiation or trial.
Force Majeure
A common clause in many contracts designed to protect multiple parties from obligation or liability when faced with an altering and extraordinary event outside of their control such as a pandemic like COVID-19. This “legal act of God” prevents one or both parties from fulfilling their contractual obligations and therefore renders the exposed parties temporarily harmless in the event of suit. Most force majeure clauses extend only to the duration of the event and is not intended to include all non-performance, such as acts of negligence or malfeasance. Because this COVID-19 event is having reoccurring effects on many communities in Florida and once lifted sanctions are again being imposed, it is important to talk to a legal expert if one finds themselves unable to fulfill their contractual obligations and are potentially in dispute with their counterparts. Companies may still be obligated to demonstrate that COVID-19 has actually caused a disruption, delays, and or additional expenditures in fulfilling contractual obligations. Experienced construction law attorneys can assist affected parties in resolving these issues.
As our name implies, the attorneys at Heekin Law, P.A. are prepared to seek justice through litigation but only after all attempts to negotiate a fair settlement have failed to produce a clear path forward. Geoff Heekin, Hunter Malin, and Ariel Spires have a wealth of experience in resolving complex construction law issues. The COVID-19 outbreak has and will continue, hopefully in the short term, to affect ongoing construction projects. We are experienced in all aspects of construction law and will protect your rights through whatever legal means are available to achieve a lasting and durable outcome. Give us a call at 904-355-7000 for a free, no-obligation consultation to answer your questions, take appropriate action on your behalf to protect your rights. We have adapted our consultation processes to make our clients feel comfortable and safe and can meet in a variety of ways including telephone, live internet meeting rooms, and of course in person, taking appropriate precautionary measures of distancing and masks if requested.
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to