15. OTHER COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

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Litigation.  We are subject to certain claims, charges, litigation, and other proceedings in the ordinary course of our business, including those arising from or related to contractual matters, intellectual property, personal injury, environmental matters, product liability, product recalls, construction defects, insurance coverage, personnel and employment disputes, antitrust, and other matters, including class actions.  We believe we have adequate defenses in these matters, and we do not believe that the ultimate outcome of these matters will have a material adverse effect on us.  However, there is no assurance that we will prevail in any of these pending matters, and we could in the future incur judgments, enter into settlements of claims, or revise our expectations regarding the outcome of these matters, which could materially impact our liquidity and our results of operations.

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Other Matters.  We enter into contracts, which include customary indemnities that are standard for the industries in which we operate.  Such indemnities include, among other things, customer claims against builders for issues relating to our products and workmanship.  We generally exclude indemnity relating to product quality and warranty claims from our agreements as those claims are passed directly to the manufacturers of the products that we install or distribute.  In conjunction with divestitures and other transactions, we occasionally provide customary indemnities relating to various items including, among others, the enforceability of trademarks, legal and environmental issues, and asset valuations.  We evaluate the probability that we may incur liabilities under these customary indemnities and appropriately record an estimated liability when deemed probable.

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We also maintain indemnification agreements with our directors and officers that may require us to indemnify them against liabilities that arise by reason of their status or service as directors or officers, except as prohibited by applicable law.

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We occasionally use performance bonds to ensure completion of our work on certain larger customer contracts that can span multiple accounting periods.  Performance bonds generally do not have stated expiration dates; rather, we are released from the bonds as the contractual performance is completed.  We also have bonds outstanding for license and insurance.

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The following table summarizes our outstanding performance, licensing, insurance and other bonds, in thousands:

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