construction law Archives

Apr 28, 2022

A Century Later: Implied Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing Still Going Strong

Parties to construction contracts are often surprised to learn that they are bound to implied unwritten contract obligations in addition to the written terms of their contracts. Courts in the United States began to recognize certain implied contract obligations about 100 years ago in circumstances where application of the common law rules of contract formation and interpretation would lead to results that the parties to the contract clearly did not intend. As a result, the courts required that the implied contract obligations be consistent with and necessary to carry out the express terms of the contract, such that it could… Read more

Dec 16, 2014

AIA Additions and Deletions Report May Be More Important Than You Think

The parol evidence rule is a substantive common-law rule that prevents a party to an integrated (complete) written contract from presenting extrinsic evidence that contradicts or adds to the written terms of the contract unless one of a handful of narrow exceptions applies. The rule means that one cannot use evidence of prior negotiations to alter the terms of an integrated (complete) written contract. The American Institute of Architect’s (“AIA”) proprietary software requires changes in the form agreement to be shown as redlined or strikethrough text, or as an Additions and Deletions Report appended to the end of the document. For… Read more

Feb 26, 2014

Utility Interference Work in New York

Imagine you are a contractor that has decided to pursue work with the city. You are lucky enough to secure a lucrative contract to upgrade the city’s infrastructure, but you discover that certain other infrastructure owned by a private utility must be relocated to complete your work. Now imagine that the private utility refuses to relocate its infrastructure and refuses to enter into a contract to allow you to relocate the utility’s interfering infrastructure. The utility’s lack of cooperation is likely to cause significant and costly delays on your job with the city. What can you do? In Perfetto Contracting… Read more