Last week during family skate night, my daughter asked me for two quarters to play some Skee-Ball. I loved playing that game as a kid. But imagine my surprise when I turned the corner and witnessed her active interference with the rules of the game! (… Truly, you can’t script this stuff…)
In construction
Contractors make mistakes with words. Contractors make mistakes with numbers. And sometimes, a mistake with words leads to a mistake with numbers.
In Clark Construction Co. v. Alabama Highway Department, a highway contractor tried to withdraw its bid on public contract and have its bid bond returned after it made a mistake on a
We live in a world of e-mails, IMs, texts, Snapchats, Instagrams and the occasional fax. Although information is transmitted instantaneously in today’s environment, proof of receipt of that information (often called “Notice”) remains subject to some very strict rules imposed by contract, case law or statute.
Notice of Claims. In a recent transportation case involving
I forgot how much fun it was playing family board games as a child. We recently dusted off some of the oldies like Sorry, Life and Monopoly to play with the kids. I laughed uncontrollably the first time I got to say, “Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200!”
Last weekend we played Speak-Out: Kids versus Parents, a game where you use a plastic thingy to obstruct your speech capabilities. The winning team is the one that guesses the most phrases. Reading and understanding an insurance policy on a construction project can be a lot like understanding my kids playing Speak Out.
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Our middle child of seven kids suffers from classic Middle Child Syndrome. She has the largest heart in the family, and yet every other minute is a moment of devastation, wrought with feelings of neglect, resentfulness and sadness. We love her and we have empathy, but—like government contractors who sometimes feel burned—there are no devastation
As a father of seven children, my wife has often accused me of being Disney Dad−something to do with the allegation that I am the “fun” parent who takes the children to movies all the time, serves ice cream for breakfast, and lets them sleep in their clothes at bedtime. Never have…never did.
While
Long before I was an attorney, I heard this tale that if you endorsed a check that had the words “PAID IN FULL” written on the check, then you were accepting the check as full payment of what was owed. But I had never really thought about that legal principle because, “People don’t really do
Believe it or not, there are always a wealth of emails and other documents produced in litigation that help “make the case” for the other side. Take, for the example, the e-mail I found in the files of one superintendent entitled “PROJECT DELAYS” … the words could not have been clearer … “I think
You don’t always say what you mean. And you don’t always mean what you say. In construction contracts, parties attempt to use plain and ordinary words to describe their respective obligations.
As an example, when the parties use the word “shall” in their agreement, they generally understand that the obligation specified is mandatory. Or