Many construction payment disputes come down to one key question—who is responsible for extra costs incurred while building a project? Parties frequently have competing breach-of-contract actions that focus on who is liable. But a recent federal court case shows that
Continue Reading General Contractor Awarded $22,000 of Its $1.3 Million Claim Against a Subcontractor
In Cano, Inc. v. Judet, the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal recently reaffirmed that when a contractor breaches a contract and the owner sues for breach of contract, the owner has three options for calculating its damages as
Continue Reading Project Owner Damages When the Contractor Breaches a Construction Contract
Resolving construction disputes through arbitration may be preferable under certain circumstances. I won’t go into the pros and cons of arbitration versus litigation, but one of the negatives of arbitrating a dispute is that the parties have to pay
Continue Reading If You Don’t Want Arbitration, Make That Clear in Your Contract!
If you are a construction contractor on a federal government project that is default terminated, do not forget that you only have, at most, one year to appeal the termination.
Under the Federal Acquisition Regulations, the federal government, through its
Continue Reading Contractor’s Appeal of Default Termination Dismissed as Time-Barred
One common request that I get from my contractor clients is to determine whether a client has a legitimate claim for additional time and money due to impacts arising out of a project. While each situation is unique, there are
Continue Reading Four Steps for Evaluating Construction Claims on Public Projects
Pay-if-paid clauses make a prime contractor’s payment to a subcontractor contingent on the prime contractor receiving payment from the project owner. A recent federal court case illustrates how the failure to include a pay-if-paid clause can end up with a
Continue Reading Subcontractor Awarded $3.3 Million for Extra Work on a Roadway Project
In United States ex rel. Aarow/IET LLC v. Hartford Fire Insurance Company, an electrical subcontractor sued a general contractor and the payment bond surety for $2.9 million in additional labor costs incurred on a federal government project. The subcontractor
Continue Reading Court Concludes No-Damages-for-Delay Clause Did Not Bar Subcontractor’s Disruption Claim
Contractors and subcontractors that incur increased costs to complete their work due to delay or other impacts on a project sometimes have difficulty proving their damages. There are various ways to calculate those damages, but the surest way to have
Continue Reading Total Cost Claims—Frequently Rejected and Rarely Effective
After a general contractor on a federal government project allegedly terminated a subcontractor’s contract for convenience, the subcontractor sued the payment bond surety for the amounts owed to the subcontractor. In Maguire-O’Hara Construction, Inc. v. Cool Roofing Systems, Inc., the
Continue Reading Federal Court Rejects Subcontractor’s Payment Bond Claim for Unperformed Work
This is the third post in a five-part series about the most common reasons for winning GAO bid protests. The third most common reason for winning a bid protest is when an agency fails to follow the evaluation criteria stated
Continue Reading Construction Bid Protests – Failure to Follow Evaluation Criteria
