OSU Loses First Round on Contractor Impact Claims
Kegler Brown Construction Newsletter September 1, 2003
The Ohio State University ("OSU") has faced numerous sizeable delay and impact claims arising from The Fisher College of Business (Phase II) project. One of the arguments asserted by OSU was that an owner should not be responsible for co-prime contractor delay or lack of coordination among multiple prime contractors.
The prime contractors argued that the owner should ultimately be responsible for such coordination under Ohio's statutorily mandated multiple prime system and that the impacts were caused by OSU or its agents in any event.
The Ohio Court of Claims appointed William Clark as a Special Referee to hear the matter. He tried the case over many weeks and in a lengthy opinion issued a sizeable award against OSU in favor of various prime contractors. The award will likely be hotly contested and a final decision will not be expected anytime soon.