Daniel Lund III | Phelps Dunbar
Just say when.
Two decisions issued on the same day in the same matter by a Louisiana state appellate court preserved claims against a backdrop of contractual claims provisions that seemed not to have been followed, and a statute of limitations which seemed to have expired.
The decisions reversed separate trial court rulings in favor of a general contractor and its performance bond surety, respectively, rulings which had dismissed project owner claims against those parties.
The case involved a public project in St. James Parish on which the general contractor – frustrated over various design issues plaguing the project – stopped work on the project, terminated its contract with the public owner, and issued and filed in the public records its own “notice of termination”– signaling to the world that the GC was off the project. The GC then filed suit against the public owner, and the public owner promptly counterclaimed against the GC for allegedly defective work. Many years later, the public owner added the performance bond surety of the general contractor as a defendant in the counterclaim.
For its part, the contractor requested and received from the trial court a summary judgment dismissing the public owner’s claims, based upon AIA contract claims procedures not having been followed by the public owner (the public owner simply asserted its claims by its countersuit, and not in accordance with the standard AIA notice of claim requirements). The Court of Appeal reversed, citing a provision in the AIA general conditions which declared that “no action or failure to act by the Owner, Architect or Contractor shall constitute a waiver of a right or duty afforded them under the Contract….” Additionally, the court felt that the public owner had no obligation to observe the terms of the contract (apparently including the notice of claim provisions) once the GC terminated the contract.
As regards the belated claim against the surety – dismissed by the trial court – the Court of Appeal also reversed. The lower court ruling was based upon the Louisiana five-year statute of repose applicable to public construction contracts (La. R.S. 38:2189), a five-year period which can be triggered by “notice of default of the contractor.” Although more than five years had passed since the dispute between the public owner and the surety’s principal, the general contractor, the appellate court perceived that the public owner had never formally placed the GC in default, such that the five-year period never commenced. The ruling was issued over the surety’s argument that a decision as such would entail that the surety would be exposed on its performance bond indefinitely (the appellate court disagreed, although did not explain the basis for its disagreement).
Lamar Contractors v. Srf Grp. Consulting, 22-212 (La. App. 5 Cir. 02/01/23); 2023 La. App. LEXIS 135 and 136
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