The Contract and Not Common Sense Determines the Proper Parties to an Arbitration

Many construction contracts require the parties to resolve their disputes through alternate dispute resolution procedures such as mediation and arbitration.  Arbitration is intended to be a cost effective alternative to litigation.  The issue of whether arbitration works as well as intended will be the subject of a future post on this Blog but the topic of discussion here is the question of determining the proper parties to any given arbitration.  The answer is counterintuitive.

When it comes to arbitration, there are several well settled rules.  For example, courts favor arbitration, arbitration is a creature of contract, and no party will be forced to arbitrate when it has not agreed to do so.  In light of the foregoing, you might believe that a party, who is named in a demand for arbitration, files an answer to the demand, and participates in the arbitration hearing, has agreed to arbitrate and should be held liable for any arbitrator’s award that enters against it.  If you did believe that, however, you’d be wrong.

In CDIFUND, LLC v. Lenkowski, disputes arising out of home construction contracts were arbitrated.  CDIFUND, LLC v. Lenkowski, 2011 Conn. Super.

Court Rules That the Government Contractor Defense is Not Applicable to Road Reconstruction Projects

As articulated by the United States Supreme Court, the government contractor defense provides that “[l]iability for design defects in military equipment cannot be imposed, pursuant to state law, when (1) the United States approved reasonably precise specifications; (2) the equipment conformed to those specifications; and (3) the supplier warned the United States about the dangers in the use of the equipment that were known to the supplier but not to the United States.”  Boyle v. United Techs. Corp., 487 U.S. 500, 512 (U.S. 1988).  The Connecticut Supreme Court recognized the government contractor defense in Miller v. United Technologies Corp., 233 Conn. 732 (Conn. 1995).  Nonetheless, a Connecticut Superior Court has just refused to apply the government contractor defense to a claim arising out of a road reconstruction project.

In Fox v. Town of Stratford, 2012 Conn. Super. LEXIS 1443 (Conn. Super. Ct. June 1, 2012), the plaintiff alleged that his property was damaged by flooding caused by a road reconstruction project.  The contractor asserted that, under the authority of Miller and Boyle, it cannot be held liable for plaintiff’s alleged damages because it strictly complied with the government’s plans and specifications. 

Subcontractors Only Have Very Limited Rights Against Public Owners

On private construction projects, subcontractors and/or suppliers that furnish labor, material, or services but are not paid by the project’s general contractor have a variety of claims that they may assert against a private owner.  For example, such subcontractors and/or suppliers may assert claims for unjust enrichment or file a mechanic’s lien.  No such rights exist, however, where the project owner is the State of Connecticut or one of its cities or towns.

As an alternative to the typical claims a subcontractor or supplier has against a private owner, Conn. Gen. Stat. § 49-41 requires general contractors that enter contracts for public projects over a certain dollar amount to post surety bonds that guarantee payment to their subcontractors and suppliers.  The exact language of Conn. Gen. Stat. § 49-41 states that “[e]ach contract . . . [for] any public building or public work of the state or a municipality shall include a provision that the person to perform the contract shall furnish . . . a bond . . . for the protection of persons supplying labor or materials . . .”  By the plain language of the statute, the onus is put on the general contractor to supply the bond;

Public Owners Cannot Arbitrarily Award Contracts

Successfully protesting the award of a public construction contract is a very difficult.  Under the public bidding laws, an unsuccessful bidder cannot obtain a monetary award against a public owner and its only recourse is to seek stop the public owner from awarding the contract to another bidder.  The courts, however, will not stop a public owner from rejecting an apparent low bid and awarding the contract to another bidder unless the public owner engaged in fraud, favoritism or corruption.

For years, the public bidding laws protected the public owner’s ability to make any decision it deemed to be in its best interest provided it acted in good faith.  As indicated in another post, that protection ended when the Connecticut Supreme Court held that it was possible for an unsuccessful bidder to obtain a monetary judgment against a public owner if the claim was based upon a cause of action that did not rely upon the public bidding laws. 

More recently, a Connecticut Superior Court determined that a public owner can be held liable for money damages if it completely circumvents the public bidding laws.  In CTTFB, Inc. v. City of Bridgeport, the court refused to overturn a jury verdict that awarded the plaintiff damages after determining that the City violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act. 

What to Do When You Don’t Have Time to Wait for a Written Change Order

One of the most litigated construction law issues is whether a contractor is entitled to payment for additional work performed without a fully executed written change order.  Most construction contracts state that the contractor is not entitled to payment for any additional work, unless the additional work is performed pursuant to a written change order that has been sign by the owner, contractor and the architect.  The problem is that — because time is money — waiting for a signed change order is often costly so most contractors move forward with additional work based upon verbal agreements with the intention of executing a written change order at a later date.

Most of the time, no problems arise from having performed additional work without first having a written change order.  The parties abide by their verbal commitments, which are then incorporated into the written change order required by the contract.  Once in a while, however, an owner will refuse to issue payment for work that was performed without a written change order despite an oral agreement being reached during the project.  In these situations, some courts have enforced the contract provision requiring written change orders and have denied the contractor the right to recover payment for his work.