YOUR FIRM: CASE SCENARIOS
NEGLIGENCE IN ON-SITE VISITS An eager young employee of a landscape architect firm visited the site on a daily basis to watch and learn the process of constructing a 17-mile block wall that he had helped design. Unfortunately, he never noticed that the general contractor had changed the specified type of irrigation and built the wall out of materials that had not been specified. Several years later when a claim was made, the firm tried to argue that all of the damages were the contractor’s responsibility and that the landscape architect had only limited construction phase services. Those arguments proved worthless when a subpoena revealed daily photographs taken by the employee that clearly showed that construction was not in compliance with the design. LACK OF EXPERIENCE WITH REQUESTED SERVICE An engineer was retained to perform a Phase I environmental study for a client wanting to purchase property on which to build warehouses. Although Phase I studies typically do not include a full wetland determination, the client asked the engineer to do so. The engineer concluded that the property was not considered to be in a wetland. After purchasing the property, the client learned that the Corps of Engineers and other experts disagreed with the engineer’s assessment. Because the engineer did not have extensive experience in wetland determination, the engineer settled the claim for $350,000.
37 • From Risk to Profit - Benchmarking and Claims Studies
Victor
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