Owner’s Duty to Cooperate on Multi-Prime Construction Projects

This is the fourth blog post in a six-part series about an owner’s duty to coordinate and cooperate on multi-prime construction projects. The purpose of this series is to provide awareness of the owner’s duties along with case examples on the subject. This post provides a case example of a contractor’s recovery of its increased costs due to an owner’s position that cooperation was the responsibility of the prime contractors.

Case Example No. 2 – Owner’s Duty to Cooperate
In Jacobson & Company, Inc.,¹ the Board of Contract Appeals (the “BCA”) found that Jacobson & Company, Inc. (“Jacobson”), was entitled to an adjustment to its contract due to the government’s failure to prevent interferences that affected the contractor’s work. The government contracted with Jacobson to perform ceiling work on a phased design and construction of a federal building in Jackson, Mississippi. Jacobson’s work needed to be coordinated with a high-partition contractor that the government contracted separately.

During the project, the high-partition contractor performed its work out of sequence relative to Jacobson. Jacobson followed the sequence per the direction of the government’s construction manager. The government’s approval of Jacobson’s shop drawings that indicated the sequence confirmed this. Jacobson notified the government of the following problem:

The braces are interfering and preventing installation of the grid and the top cap is not clear of the grid. Additionally the pre-installation of this partition is interfering with our leveling and flow of work.

We therefore request that the braces and interfering top cap be removed and reinstalled in sequence after our ceiling is completed. Furthermore, we request your change order to compensate us for lost time…

The government’s position was that cooperation and coordination were the responsibility of each prime contractor per contract and not the responsibility of the government. Consequently, the government informed Jacobson that it was required to coordinate its work with the work of other contractors, as stated in the contract documents. However, the BCA found that the government failed in its duty to prevent interference with the work of Jacobson. The BCA concluded:

The Government can decide on whatever method of construction and contracting it chooses, but in doing so, it also assumes the responsibilities inherent in its choice. With phased construction, it is obvious that the contracting officer has the obligation and duty to demand that the various contractors cooperate with the construction schedule and not interfere with the work of any other contractor.

It is plain that the Government is obligated to prevent interference with orderly and reasonable progress of a contractor’s work by other contractors over whom the Government has control.

Based on the BCA’s ruling, Jacobson was entitled to recover increased costs from the government due to the interferences caused by the high-partition contractor.

¹     Jacobson & Company, Inc., GSBCA No. 5605 ¶ 14,521 (1980).

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