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Construction Contracts Contract Interpretation

BCLP

Conditions Precedent and Time Bars, Getting Around Them

BCLP on

When a party fails to comply with a condition precedent, especially if such a provision includes a time limit for the fulfilment of the obligation, it will often advance various arguments to avoid the consequences of...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Mississippi Passes New Retainage Law Governing Private Construction Jobs

Construction contracts for private projects will soon be subject to a new retainage law in Mississippi. On April 19, 2024, Gov. Tate Reeves approved SB 2762 into law, and after July 1, 2024, most construction contracts on...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Limitation of Damages Clause in Contract Held Inapplicable to Subcontractor’s Change Order Claim

Construction contracts often include clauses that purport to limit the liability of one or both parties. This includes clauses that completely prohibit any claims for certain types of damages such as lost profits and other...more

Vinson & Elkins LLP

Transferring Project Design Risk

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Some construction industry commentators have urged a more integrated approach to design and construction, with equitable risk sharing and an effort to ensure that project design will benefit from the experience of companies...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

How to Deal with Retainage on Alabama Public Projects

Retainage can be tricky in Alabama, particularly on public projects. In this post, we address retainage on public projects for public owners in the state (e.g., a governmental board, commission, agency, body, authority,...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Court Rejects Contractor’s Claim That COVID-19 Rendered Performance Impossible

A fundamental premise of contract law is that promises must be kept. If legally enforceable promises or “contracts” are not kept, courts may step in to enforce them by ordering performance, awarding damages, or granting some...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

The Basics of Contract Interpretation: A Primer for Non-Lawyers in the Construction Industry

Every first year law student in the U.S. takes a course on the Law of Contracts. It’s a rite of passage where lawyers-to-be learn all about things like consideration and legally-enforceable promises. And as lawyers, we also...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Incorporation Clauses: Does the Subcontractor Really Assume All Obligations of the Prime Contractor?

Many subcontracts contain a catch-all provision requiring the subcontractor to do everything the prime contractor is obligated to do under the prime contract. This is known as an “incorporation” clause because it adopts or...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Contextual “Construction” of Force Majeure Clauses

The Texas Supreme Court recently provided new guidance in interpreting force majeure language in an oil and gas drilling dispute. In Point Energy Partners Permian, LLC v. MRC Permian Company, the court held that the oil and...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

The American Rule Doesn’t Stand: Contractor Uses Offer of Judgment to Recover Attorneys’ Fees in Retention Dispute

Last week we saw the Menard court reject the use of an indemnity clause to shift fees in a dispute between contracting parties. This week, a very recent decision from Nevada highlights another creative way to shift fees where...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

No Written Change Order? No Problem! Court Sides with Subcontractor in Payment Dispute

Many contracts contain provisions requiring that changes to a contract be in writing and signed by a particular authorized person. Under such provisions, work done without proper written authorization will not be...more

BCLP

Third time lucky: Supreme Court allows recovery of liquidated damages in Triple Point v PTT

BCLP on

Those you of you with an interest in construction law will no doubt have heard of the case of Triple Point v PTT, which concerned whether liquidated damages (LDs) are payable in the event of termination. The first...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

You’ve Gotta Fight For Your Right To Get Paid: The Right To Stop Work

A contractor is halfway through the (timely) completion of a project and the owner’s payment is late. Days, weeks go by, and now the contractor is incurring all the costs of the work without any compensation. It might be...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Quick Thoughts for Construction Contracting: Don’t Overlook the Entities – Part 1

Sometimes the best advice is the advice we already know, but a timely reminder makes all the difference. In this first blog post of the series, the advice is exactly that. Get the right entities on the dotted lines. ...more

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Enka v Chubb: The Nuanced Presumptions "Test" on the Law of Arbitration Agreements

The United Kingdom Supreme Court in Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb has now resolved the question: which system of national law governs the validity and scope of an arbitration agreement when the law...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

New York is Pro-Choice on Forum Selection Clauses

In Somerset Fine Home Building, Inc. v. Simplex Industries, Inc., the Appellate Division of the Second Department in New York upheld a dismissal based on the plaintiff’s breach of the parties’ forum selection clause. Somerset...more

Woods Rogers

"Zone of Reasonableness" Test Prerequisite Addressed by the Federal Circuit

Woods Rogers on

The so-called “zone of reasonableness” standard has been long applied by federal courts and boards of contract appeals in evaluating contract interpretation when the contract is deemed ambiguous – meaning that it is...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Promises to Pay Sub-subcontractor may Expose General Contractor to Liability for Unjust Enrichment

On May 14, 2020, in James G. Davis Constr. Corp. v. FTJ, Inc., the Virginia Supreme Court upheld a judgment on an unjust enrichment claim in favor of FTJ, a drywall supplier on a condominium project, against Davis, the...more

Allen Matkins

In This Case, The "Crux Of The Biscuit" Was The Missing Apostrophe

Allen Matkins on

Consider the following provision of in a contract between a general contractor and a subcontractor...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Federal Court Rules Contractor Is Not Intended Third-Party Beneficiary under Owner-Engineer Agreement

In March, a Massachusetts federal court addressed whether a design-builder contractor could recover for breach of contract under an intended third-party beneficiary theory against a design firm hired by the project owner to...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Appellate Court asks Florida Supreme Court: What Kind of Damages Are Repair Costs?

On January 25, 2019, a Florida appellate court certified the following question to the Florida Supreme Court...more

BCLP

Practically complete or completely impractical? Navigating the pitfalls of what constitutes practical completion

BCLP on

Many a construction dispute turns on defects. A significant subset of those turn on whether the existence of defects prevents practical completion from taking place. Originally published on the Practical Law Construction...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Oregon Anti-Indemnity Statute Voids Sub-sub’s Duty to Indemnify Sub for the Sub’s Own Negligence

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld the application of Oregon’s anti-indemnity statute to a contractual indemnity provision requiring a sub-subcontractor’s insurer to indemnify the subcontractor for the...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

My Roof, My Rules: Arbitrators May Determine Their Own Jurisdiction When the Parties Delegate that Authority

An issue that repeatedly comes up in construction disputes is the scope of an arbitration agreement. Courts generally interpret agreements to arbitrate broadly, and, where the arbitrability of a specific claim has been at...more

Burr & Forman

Construction Contracts And Arbitration Provisions: Is The Word “May” Mandatory? Maybe!

Burr & Forman on

You don’t always say what you mean. And you don’t always mean what you say. In construction contracts, parties attempt to use plain and ordinary words to describe their respective obligations....more

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