Concurrent Delay on a Hospital Wing with Float Consumption
A 14-month, $48M hospital wing runs on a CPM schedule with a 90-day contract completion buffer. At month 6, the owner's late release of medical equipment layouts causes a 40-day delay to the MEP rough-in path. The contractor's own subcontractor, working the same MEP path, had already fallen 25 days behind due to a labor shortage; those 25 days were absorbed by the path's 30 days of total float before the owner delay occurred. The contractor submits a 65-day time extension request and acceleration costs for the full period. The owner's scheduler argues the contractor is responsible for the first 25 days and that the remaining 40 days must be reduced by the float consumed. Contract documents are silent on concurrent delay allocation.
1. Evaluate the contractor's 65-day extension request. What is the defensible entitlement, and what reasoning supports it?
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The 65-day request is not defensible. Before the owner delay, the contractor had consumed 25 of the path's 30 days of float, leaving 5 days. The owner's 40-day delay therefore produces an excusable delay only to the extent it pushes completion beyond the as-planned date. The owner-caused impact net of remaining float is 40 − 5 = 35 days. Separately, the contractor's pre-existing 25 days is non-excusable and would have delayed the path regardless. The two delays overlap on the same activity path, so this is a true concurrency question. The defensible position: grant 35 days excusable time (owner's marginal impact), deny the contractor's 25-day portion, and deny acceleration costs for any period where both delays ran concurrently, since neither party can show the other's delay solely caused that period's cost. Document the float ledger activity-by-activity.
2. The contractor demands acceleration costs. Under what conditions, if any, would acceleration costs be recoverable here?
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Acceleration costs are recoverable only where the owner's actions required the contractor to accelerate, typically via a directed acceleration or an owner's failure to grant a time extension to which the contractor was entitled while insisting on the original date. Here, the owner owes at most 35 days. If the owner refuses that extension and the contractor must compress to hold the date, the contractor can claim the incremental cost of the 35-day compression - but not for the 25-day contractor-caused portion. If the contractor accelerates voluntarily without direction or refusal, the costs are generally unrecoverable. The analysis should separate constructive vs. directed acceleration and quantify only the owner-attributable compression, supported by resource-loading records and cost evidence.