[ckissick]

I was the civil engineer on a house project, in which the builder lost money when he sold the house. The builder sued the architect for the money lost, blaming poor design.

I was amazed that the architect was even being sued in the first place, as there was nothing wrong with the design. The builder lost money because he built too nice a house for the neighborhood, and then, of course, real estate prices plummeted. This is in the Bay Area. It was the builder who guided the architect on what he wanted, so the over-design was not the fault of the architect.

Long story short, I thought the builder had no case whatsoever. I testified for hours, and still had the feeling that this was a ridiculous case. But, alas, the buildier won, and is now owed $210K.

So how could this happen? How could the judge come up with such an unfair verdict?