Volume: 24, Issue: 16 - 08/31/2026
Project owners, public and private, favor prompt notification requirements for claims. This provides them with a tactical advantage. Contractors must give written notice of a specific claim quickly after the claim arises, or the claim is barred as untimely. The contractor loses all its claim rights. However, this device also poses problems for project owners.
A recent appellate court opinion criticized these quick-claim mandates. Depending on how the claim notice requirement is structured, the contractor may be forced to give notice while negotiations of the matter are still underway. Transforming fruitful negotiation into a costly, adversarial contest may not benefit either party.
The second case in this issue involves a contractor’s reliance on owner-furnished, as-built drawings. The contract said the drawings were approximate, not for construction purposes, and were provided merely as a courtesy. Did the owner effectively shift the risk of undisclosed site conditions to the contractor?
Ongoing negotiations of responsibility for an extended performance period did not establish a contractor’s knowledge of the basis for a claim. These negotiations did not trigger the 30-day claim notice period.
Broad disclaimers did not negate the government's responsibility for the accuracy of the as-built drawings furnished to the contractor. The contractor’s notification of differing site conditions two weeks after discovery was sufficiently prompt.
Volume: 24, Issue: 15 - 08/14/2026
Language in contracts and statutes is usually interpreted according to ordinary or common usage. Courts regularly cite a dictionary meaning. Some terminology, however, gains a specialized, technical meaning within a particular trade, industry, or profession. Such terminology are terms of art and are interpreted in accordance with their specialized use.
The Minnesota Supreme Court recently interpreted the word termination as used in a statute of limitations governing the construction of improvements to real property. The term does not refer to the conclusion of physical work. It is a term of art within the construction industry and construction contracts. Termination refers to the conclusion of a contractual relationship, not the status of physical work.
The second case in this issue involves an alleged defective specification. A contractor argued the specified materials would hinder obtaining the required warranty for the roofing system and contended that the problem excused its failure to perform the work in accordance with the contract schedule.
The third case addresses the choice of state law governing a performance bond claim. The bonded project had a determinative location. The domicile of the parties to the construction contract and the location where the contract was created were not determinative.
The word termination, as used in the construction industry and construction contracts, refers to the end of a contractual relationship, not the conclusion of physical construction work.
A defaulted contractor failed to show that the government’s specifications were defective. They also failed to link issues with those specs to the contractor’s tardy performance.
A one-year claim limitation provision in a performance bond was enforceable under Virginia law, even though the bonded subcontract for the Virginia-based project was executed in Maryland between two Maryland companies.
Volume: 24, Issue: 14 - 07/31/2026
Fragmentary networks, or fragnets, are an isolated section of a project schedule affected by a specific event, such as a change or delay. They can be inserted into a critical path method schedule for the entire project. Fragnets have two uses: to track the impact of an actual event and to model or test how contemplated changes will affect the planned work.
A project owner recently conflated the two uses of fragnets. The owner contended the fragnet updates indicated the actual critical path of the work. In fact, the contractor had been modeling a contemplated change in the sequence of work. That contemplated change was abandoned as impracticable. The schedule’s critical path never changed.
The other case in this issue involves a second low bidder’s attempt to displace the low bidder. The protester argued that the low bid’s omission of certain information rendered that bid nonresponsive. Unfortunately for the protester, its bid had omitted the same information.
A fragmentary network is a CPM modeling tool that can be used to hypothesize regarding the impact of a specific event. It does not necessarily reflect what is occurring on the ground and, in itself, does not alter the project's critical path.
A second low bidder committed the same bid deficiency that motivated its protest against the low bid. It therefore suffered no prejudice and could not maintain a protest based on bid responsiveness.
