Dive Brief:

• The general contractors for a $124 million Washington, DC, high school project have filed a $2 million suit against its architects, claiming that the plans they delivered were "incomplete, uncoordinated and not ready for construction," contrary to the architects’ representations, according to the Washington Business Journal.
• The joint venture of Chiaramonte Construction Co. and Hess Construction & Engineering Services said Bowie Gridley Architects and Perkins+Will only submitted correct and complete project documents after Chiaramonte-Hess had substantially finished its work. The contractor said that after it received the architects’ scope changes, it incurred extra costs in trying to meet the project deadline.
• Chiaramonte-Hess, which had been involved in the 356,000-square-foot school modernization project since 2013, said it relied on the architects’ plans and specification to reach the amount of its guaranteed maximum price contract with the DC Department of General Services. 

Dive Insight:

Disputes between contractors and architects often arise, particularly when there are cost overruns. In another DC-based case, Marriott Marquis contractor Hensel Phelps filed a lawsuit against architect Cooper Carry, alleging design flaws that cost the construction company $8.5 million. Unfortunately for Hensel Phelps, it did not file its action against Cooper Carry in time to beat the statute of limitations, and U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon dismissed the case.

In January, the joint venture of Skanska USA and Trident Construction sued three architects who provided design services for the Gaillard Center renovation and expansion in Charleston, SC. Skanska–Trident 's multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the designers and project management company centers around the claim that they were negligent and breached the warranty of plans and specifications for the project. Skanska–Trident is suing for $20 million for each of its three causes of action.

And in a lawsuit in California earlier this year, both the contractor and architect were on the defense in a legal action brought by the Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians over defect claims for a hotel and casino complex just north of Sacramento. The tribe claimed it had to close a Hunt Construction-built hotel five years after completion, primarily because of leaking windows, roof, walls and other safety and building code deficiencies. Hunt, project subcontractors and SOSH Architects settled with the tribe after four years of mediation, but Hunt did not admit any liability in the case. SOSH alleged that Hunt was the cause of many of the problems and said it would seek reimbursement from the contractor.