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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (141323)	10/1/2005 6:56:47 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 793809

Big bidding mistake... It depends on what then contract documents called for. Because of the different types of soils and foundations prevalent in the area and the length of the levees, I would think that it would be prohibitively expensive for a contractor to do a soils analysis of the entire run on which he is bidding, which might be miles long. A contractor would be justified in doing limited testing and/or relying on the information the COE provides. It all depends on what the construction documents called for Most contract documents typically call for increased compensation to the contractor if there is a "change in conditions." I have litigated these claims for extras and allegations of claimed changed conditions extensively. Bottom line is that extras are allowed if the condition is hidden and not ascertainable by an bidder using a high level of skill. The game with public contracts is for contractors to underbid in order to win the contract, then tie up the job with claims for extras due to often illusory changed conditions. Since a public works project is involved, the public entity might negotiate and pay simply to get the project under way as the contractor will often refuse to work on the aspect of the job on which there is a changed condition until extra pay is approved. Pittman--never one of our clients--had a reputation for careful bidding and good work. As far as I know, it never engaged in the sleazy game I described above. If it asked for extras, I would be surprised if they were not justified. If the COE did not allow a claim for extras to Pittman, it is possible that such an action would be a very bad signal to other, less honorable, contractors. If they ran into the same thing Pittman seems to have found, they would have known that the COE was going to fight them on extras. The easy way out and not lose money on a possibly underbid deal would have been to do shoddy work rather than fight a claim for extras an honorable outfit like Pittman had lost.