Kiewit Construction Co. v. United States

56 Fed. Cl. 414, 2003 U.S. Claims LEXIS 92, 2003 WL 21077032
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedApril 22, 2003
DocketNo. 98-666C
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 56 Fed. Cl. 414 (Kiewit Construction Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kiewit Construction Co. v. United States, 56 Fed. Cl. 414, 2003 U.S. Claims LEXIS 92, 2003 WL 21077032 (uscfc 2003).

Opinion

OPINION

SMITH, Senior Judge.

This matter is before the court on Defendant’s motions for summary judgment and to dismiss Plaintiffs claim. Plaintiff seeks an equitable adjustment pursuant to the Contract Disputes Act (“CDA”) on two counts.1 Count One of Plaintiffs complaint alleges that the design specifications provided in a government construction contract were defective. Count Two alleges that site conditions at the construction work site differed materially from actual site conditions, resulting in damages to Plaintiff. Defendant contends that Count One should be dismissed pursuant to Rules of the Court of Federal Claims (“RCFC”) 12(b)(1), or in the alternative, that summary judgment should be entered in favor of the United States on Count [416]*416One, and that we should grant summary judgment on Count Two pursuant to RCFC 56(c) in favor of Defendant. After reviewing the briefs and hearing oral argument, the court hereby GRANTS Defendant’s motions.

FACTS

This dispute arises from a written contract between Plaintiff, Kiewit Construction Company (“Kiewit”), and the Huntington District of the Army Corps of Engineers (the “Corps”) regarding the construction of the Winfield Locks and Dam on the Kanawha River in West Virginia. The Corps had solicited contractors to build a lock2 and gate bay3 to the Winfield Locks and Dam in three phases: Phase I, Phase IIA, and Phase IIB. A different contractor than the Plaintiff completed Phase I, which consisted primarily of the construction of cofferdam4 cells up- and downstream of the existing lock walls. The present matter concerns the second phase of the project, Phase IIA.

Phase IIA involved dewatering the work site by excavating a designated area to form a new cofferdam, and building and implementing a dewatering system consisting of a groundwater and surface water control system (the “dewatering system”) to lower the water table within the excavation area. The dewatering system consisted of sheet pile cutoff walls,5 a slurry trench cutoff wall6 situated landward of the designated work area, piezometers, predrainage wells, ditching and sandbags, and sump pumps. The Corps intended the dewatering system to keep water seepage from interfering with the timely completion of the new cofferdam. Thus, on the side of the excavation facing the Kanawha River, the existing locks and cofferdam cells installed in Phase I would keep river water from entering the excavation area. On the side of the excavation facing the ground away from the Kanawha River, the slurry trench, which connected the previously built upstream and downstream cofferdam cells, would prevent groundwater from entering the excavation area. The dewater-ing system was designed to allow the contractor to lower the groundwater inside of the enclosed space to within five feet of the floor of the excavation area. Contract, § 2C, 118.1.1(6).

On May 23, 1993, the Corps and Kiewit entered a contract (the “Contract”) requiring Kiewit to perform Phase IIA. The Contract included four provisions especially relevant to the present case. First, the Contract included detailed information regarding soil and subsurface conditions in the designated work area, including boring logs and references to available pumping test data. Contract, § 2C, 11115.4-5.6.1.

Second, the Contract included extensive specifications providing Kiewit with mandatory minimum performance and design information regarding the dewatering system to serve as a basis for Kiewit’s bid on the Contract. Contract, § 2C, 118. In addition to these minimum specifications, the Contract noted that if the contractor considered additional facilities necessary to fulfill the contract, the extras “shall be included in the Contractor’s Groundwater Control Plan or shall be added as required or as directed by the Contracting Officer ... at no additional cost to the Government.” Contract, § 2C, If 8.1.2.

Third, the Contract listed “Predrainage Design Assumptions” underlying the design [417]*417of the prescribed minimum dewatering system. These fundamental assumptions included statements that “the bottom of the cofferdam cells and the downstream guide wall and landside lock wall form a tight contact with the bedrock, that the sheet pile cutoff walls and slurry trench cutoff wall will prevent any significant seepage into the work area, and that the bedrock at the sight is tight.” Contract, § 2C, H 5.7. However, the contract explicitly cautioned that “[tjhese assumptions may or may not be completely valid,” and that “it shall be the Contractor’s sole responsibility to control and pump any water that may leak through the existing structures, the cutoff wall, and/or from the bedrock, for whatever conditions that may exist.” Id. (emphasis in original).

Fourth, the contract included a standard “Differing Site Conditions” clause.7 See Contract, § I, 111.73. Differing Site Conditions clauses provide guidelines for private contractors and government contracting officers in the investigation of contractors’ claims of discrepancies between the physical conditions at work sites and the description of those work sites in government contracts. In particular, Differing Site Conditions clauses require that contractors provide written notice to contracting officers of such discrepancies.

Pursuant to the Contract, Plaintiff excavated the space intended for use as the new cofferdam, and installed and operated a de-watering system meeting the minimum required system guidelines in the Contract. However, Kiewit was unable to lower the groundwater within the work area to within five feet of the bottom of the work area; the dewatering system only lowered the groundwater to an elevation within 13.5 feet of the excavation’s floor. Kiewit informed the Corps of the situation in a letter dated June 6, 1994. In the letter, Kiewit alleged that the predrainage well system used to lower groundwater in the work area had not met the performance criteria set by the contract.

Kiewit wrote a second letter to the Corps on April 7,1995. In the second letter, Kiewit requested $685,884.00 due to the unexpected water encountered at the work site. Kiewit maintained in the second letter that the extra groundwater added to Kiewit’s construction expenses by necessitating the excavation of seven feet more of water-saturated soil from the work site than the Contract had indicated that Phase IIA would require. On September 21, 1995, Kiewit submitted a Type I differing site conditions claim under the contract’s Differing Site Conditions clause to the Corps’ Phase IIA contracting officer (the “Contracting Officer”), requesting compensation in the amount of $745,281.00 for unexpected costs accrued in Kiewit’s performance of the Contract.8 The claim alleged that the [418]*418additional groundwater at the work site had caused the need for the excavation of an additional eight-and-a-half feet of water-saturated soil not identified by the Contract, amounting to a “differing site condition that impacted virtually all dewatering and excavation operations” in Phase IIA. Defendant’s Motion For Summary Judgment On Count Two And Motion To Dismiss Count One For Lack Of Jurisdiction, Or In The Alternative, For Summary Judgment On Count One, App. (“App.”) at 69 (Kiewit’s certified claim). On March 21, 1996, Kiewit submitted a certification of its claim to the Corps.

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Bluebook (online)
56 Fed. Cl. 414, 2003 U.S. Claims LEXIS 92, 2003 WL 21077032, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kiewit-construction-co-v-united-states-uscfc-2003.