By Bruce Jervis
Accelerating the planned pace of construction work can be expensive. The contractor may add personnel and equipment. The contractor may incur overtime wage rates. Supervisory and administrative expenses go up as well. It is no surprise that contractors seek compensation for these increased costs. But a contractor’s acceleration of the pace of its work does not necessarily mean the project owner is responsible. This was illustrated on a recent federal construction project.
The contract stipulated a deadline for substantial completion and required the contractor to submit a construction schedule for owner approval. As the deadline approached, the owner expressed concern that the schedule had slipped and the contractor would not achieve timely completion. The owner stressed the importance of meeting the deadline and threatened the contractor with liquidated damages. The contractor accelerated the work.
The contractor was denied recovery of its acceleration costs. The insistence on compliance with the approved schedule was not a directive to accelerate the work. And there had been no constructive acceleration. The contractor failed to prove it had fallen behind schedule due to excusable delay or that it had made proper, timely requests for an extension of time. The contractor alone was responsible for the cost of acceleration.
How should this responsibility be allocated? The contractor is obligated to stay on schedule and meet the contractual deadline, yet sometimes the owner’s action or inaction compresses the schedule. And sometimes factors beyond the control and without the fault of either the owner or contractor delay the work and compress the schedule. Is every refusal by an owner to grant an extension of time a potential acceleration claim? I welcome your comments.
