The Holloway Consulting Group, LLC is a internationally known Construction Claims firm with offices in Colorado and Louisiana. As illustrated at our page on Construction Schedule Delay Claims, one of our primary practice areas is on matters involving the preparation of, or rebuttal of, Construction Schedule Delay Claims. This page continues our series on the Construction Claims Consulting services we provide to our clients, in this case, on critical path methods in schedule delay:
CONSTRUCTION CLAIMS | SCHEDULE DELAY
Critical Path Methods
Legal authorities have consistently held that delays to activities on the critical path(s) are of primary importance in evaluating construction schedule delay claims. For example, courts have held that a contractor was not be entitled to a time extension for an excusable delay unless the delay extends the overall project completion, i.e., extends the duration of the critical path. Conversely, a contractor may be entitled to the recovery of delay-related costs for non-critical path work activities.
Essentially, the compensable delay need only increase the contractor’s cost of performance. For example, owner-caused delays to an off-site storage tank and pipeline, resulting from defective and deficient specifications, may not have delayed the overall completion of the project but may have increased the contractor’s time-related costs for building the storage tank and pipeline.
In these cases, the contractor may be entitled to recover delay-related costs despite the fact that the overall project was completed within the required contract period. Often, these delay-related claims are for lost labor productivity, job disruption, or other direct costs.
SCHEDULE DELAY | CRITICAL PATH METHODS AND THE COURTS
Courts, arbitration panels and most other legal forums have shown an increasing preference for CPM scheduling techniques to identify and quantify schedule delays, impacts, accelerations, and disruptions on construction projects. These authorities have demonstrated an expanding level of knowledge in using CPM scheduling in their decisions on contract disputes. For example, in Utley-James, Inc., the board provided a detailed description of CPM scheduling that included a discussion of such advanced concepts as the critical path, resource leveling, acceleration, and buy-back time.
Decisions such as Utley-James, Inc., illustrate the courts’ increasing sophistication in working with CPM scheduling and their preference to focus on critical path delays on schedule delay claims.
READ MORE ABOUT CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE DELAY CLAIMS
The Holloway Consulting Group, LLC
Construction Consultants – Construction Schedule Claims Experts
12081 W. Alameda Pkwy., #450
Lakewood, CO 80228-2701
Denver Phone: (303) 984-1941
International Toll Free: (888) 545-0666
Fax: (303) 716-0432
Email: steve.holloway@disputesinconstruction.com
Blog: disputesinconstruction.com
Web: hcgexperts.com
