We have a wide range of experience prosecuting or defending claims for delay or disruption. We have the knowledge and experience to work with scheduling experts to determine the period of delay to a project caused by or attributable to each of the parties. This requires a degree of understanding and familiarity with scheduling techniques such as CPM and computer programs used by contractors to manage their jobs. Also, time-related damages that contractors incur can be difficult to calculate and prove. These include equipment claims, labor productivity losses, jobsite overhead and direct cost, home office overhead, price escalation, etc. We do not proport to be experts in construction scheduling, forensic accounting, or forensic delay analysis, but we maintain relationships with those who are.

Time is money to a contractor. Louisiana, by statute, recognizes the importance to contractors of completing projects on time and the cost to be incurred by contractors when delayed. On public works projects, by law, the public entity is precluded from specifying contract provisions whereby the contractor waives, relinquishes, or extinguishes its claim for delay damages caused by or attributable to the public owner. La. R.S. 38:2216H provides:

H. Any provision contained in a public contract which purports to waive, release, or extinguish the rights of a contractor to recover cost of damages, or obtain equitable adjustment, for delays in performing such contract, if such delay is caused in whole, or in part, by acts or omissions within the control of the contracting public entity or persons acting on behalf thereof, is against public policy and is void or unenforceable. When a contract contains a provision which is void and unenforceable under this Subsection, that provision shall be severed from the other provisions of the contract and the fact that the provision is void and unenforceable shall not affect the other provisions of the contract.

Louisiana law also prohibits the owner from shifting risk for construction defects to the contractor where the owner furnished the plans and specifications. The design sufficiency law is not subject to waiver by contract. La. R.S. 9:2771 provides:

No contractor, including but not limited to a residential building contractor as defined in R.S. 37:2150.1(9), shall be liable for destruction or deterioration of or defects in any work constructed, or under construction, by him if he constructed, or is constructing, the work according to plans or specifications furnished to him which he did not make or cause to be made and if the destruction, deterioration, or defect was due to any fault or insufficiency of the plans or specifications. This provision shall apply regardless of whether the destruction, deterioration, or defect occurs or becomes evident prior to or after delivery of the work to the owner or prior to or after acceptance of the work by the owner. The provisions of this Section shall not be subject to waiver by the contractor.