Beauchamp Construction Co. v. United States

34 Cont. Cas. Fed. 75,453, 14 Cl. Ct. 430, 1988 U.S. Claims LEXIS 27, 1988 WL 19945
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedMarch 8, 1988
DocketNo. 408-85C
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 34 Cont. Cas. Fed. 75,453 (Beauchamp Construction Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beauchamp Construction Co. v. United States, 34 Cont. Cas. Fed. 75,453, 14 Cl. Ct. 430, 1988 U.S. Claims LEXIS 27, 1988 WL 19945 (cc 1988).

Opinion

OPINION

REGINALD W. GIBSON, Judge:

I. Introduction

On July 11, 1985, Beauchamp Construction Company, Inc. (Beauchamp or plaintiff) filed a complaint in this court challenging the contracting officer’s final decision which denied in part Beauchamp’s claim for an equitable adjustment of $55,818.45 under the Differing Site Condition clause of its contract with the Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS or defendant). In this court, plaintiff now seeks $87,430.31 in damages for an allegeged 137-day delay in contract performance due solely to the defective specifications of INS and an admitted differing site condition. Jurisdiction lies under 28 U.S.C. § 1491 and 41 U.S.C. § 609.1 This opinion addresses plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment seeking an order holding defendant liable for additional delay costs incurred due to the government’s defective specifications, the resulting differing site condition, and the delay involved in correcting these specifications and conditions.

Viewing the submissions in the light most favorable to the non-movant defendant, and after oral argument, we grant plaintiffs motion for the reasons detailed below and find defendant liable for any provable delay damages suffered by Beau-champ. Inasmuch as the liability and damages issues have been bifurcated, the precise amount of such damages shall be determined at a separate trial under RUSCC 42(b).

II. Facts

The following facts are not disputed by the parties, thus, we find accordingly. On September 30, 1983, INS awarded Beau-champ a fixed-price ($2,879,800) contract (DLS-41-83) for construction and renovation of several buildings at Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, Florida. As noted in the Invitation For Bids (IFB), the contract contained representations of soil conditions. On that same date, plaintiff received formal notice to proceed with contract performance, and under the contract, plaintiff had 365 days in which to complete the contract. Mobilization, for contract performance, began on October 6, 1983. Thereafter, in mid-October 1983, plaintiff discovered “muck” which is a variant soil condition. “Muck” rendered the soil incapable of supporting a building’s foundation, which in turn prevented plaintiff from placing the footings for the medical building (building 10c) and the storage facility (building 12). Also, shortly thereafter, in mid-October 1983, plaintiff advised INS’s contracting officer (CO) that actual soil conditions, at the site, differed materially from the depiction(s) in the contract. INS did not issue a written stop-work order, on such noticed condition, even though Beauchamp could not continue with part of the construction of buildings 10c and 12. Plaintiff, nevertheless, continued to perform other contractual tasks such as site preparation (i.e., clearing, grubbing, and excavating) to the extent that the muck was not an impediment. By October 24, 1983, defendant had given new specifications as well as a request for a cost proposal for demucking to Beauchamp since the original specifications did not contemplate the presence of muck. Defendant unequivocally concedes that the presence of muck [433]*433was in fact and in law a differing site condition, and that it halted a part of the work at buildings 10c and 12. Plaintiff responded with its cost proposal for the required demucking work on November 11, 1983; however, notwithstanding the admitted differing site condition, defendant did not authorize payment for plaintiff to proceed with the demucking work until it issued a telegram on January 6, 1984, which was almost three months after it was notified of the existence of the muck. Modification Number 4, authorizing the demucking, was issued by INS on January 16, 1984, effective January 6, 1984. This modification authorized payment of plaintiffs direct costs for the demucking.2 Plaintiff was only paid $63,697.44 for such work. Shortly after formal authorization of the demucking work, plaintiff by letter notified INS that it would make a separate claim for a time extension and “associated costs.”

Following the foregoing modification, the contracting officer sent plaintiff a letter on January 17, 1984. In this letter, defendant represented to Beauchamp that it would grant a time extension due to the demucking around building sites 10c and 12 from “the time construction was due to begin ... [to] the date Modification 4 was issued.” Further, defendant acknowledged in that same letter that despite the absence of the stop-work order—

[T]t was obvious that [Beauchamp] could not proceed with the construction of these buildings due to the sub-surface demucking requirement that was not established prior to contract award,

(emphasis added). Finally, defendant also unequivocally admitted therein that—

[C]ontract performance on a part of the work was delayed for an unreasonable period of time and that an equitable adjustment should be made for any increase in the cost of performance of the Contract (excluding profit) necessarily caused by the unreasonable suspension delay and interruption of work.

(emphasis added). At the conclusion of the letter, the contracting officer invited plaintiff to submit a claim for time delay costs including “a separate cost analysis showing the additional project management and superintendence time that will be spent on the project as a result of the delay in issuing Modification No. 4” (emphasis added).

After receipt of Modification No. 4 and during the time that Beauchamp was working to alleviate the muck problem surrounding buildings 10c and 12, so that it could continue with the construction of same, the subcontractor that was hauling the muck, i.e., Florida Engineering, experienced a truckers’ strike for a period of 19 days from January 24, 1984, to February 14, 1984. Additionally, on February 21, 25, and 27, rain delayed the demucking work. But by March 1, 1984, plaintiff had corrected the muck problem and returned to the original contract performance requirements.

After completing the demucking work on March 1, 1984, thereafter, on March 29, 1984, Beauchamp, followed the directive of the contracting officer in his January 17th letter and submitted a claim for the 137 days for interruption of work and additional indirect expenses in the amount of $55,-818.45. Plaintiff later certified its claim, at defendant’s request, on May 2, 1984. Notwithstanding the foregoing, on September 24, 1984, INS’s contracting officer denied plaintiffs claim in large part and authorized only a 54-day time extension (from the effective date of Modification No. 4, January 6, 1984, to the date of demucking completion, March 1, 1984) and $16,489.49 for indirect expenses under the differing site condition clause. Neither a time extension nor indirect costs were allowed for the period of 83 days covering the time from when the differing site condition of muck was discovered (i.e., mid-October 1983) to the time that defendant authorized payment to correct the problem (January 5, [434]

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Bluebook (online)
34 Cont. Cas. Fed. 75,453, 14 Cl. Ct. 430, 1988 U.S. Claims LEXIS 27, 1988 WL 19945, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beauchamp-construction-co-v-united-states-cc-1988.