In a highly significant recent case, the New York City School Construction Authority (“SCA”) attempted to dismiss a subcontractor’s claims seeking nearly $2.9M in extra work and $2M in delay damages. However, the state court hearing the case rejected the SCA’s lack-of-notice arguments.

The SCA’S “COFED” Arguments -

In the current case, the SCA’s argument was a litany of typical “lack of notice” type arguments based on when the SCA contended that the contractor knew or should have known that its demands for payment had been denied (i.e. when the claims “accrued”). The SCA, as well as many other public owners, use these “lack of notice” type defenses so often we coined the derisive acronym “COFED” (“Contractor Forfeiture Enhancement Device”) to disparagingly refer to such abusively used notice provisions.