Twenty-Two Days of Float: Reconstructing a Time Extension Claim
You are the owner's scheduling consultant on a $22 million elementary school with a 300-calendar-day contract and liquidated damages of $2,500 per day. The accepted baseline CPM gives the curtain wall chain (shop drawings, fabrication, installation) 22 days of total float. The contract requires the owner to return submittals within 14 calendar days and is silent on float ownership and concurrent delay.
The contractor submitted the curtain wall package six days late relative to the baseline, but the submittal lacked the structural calculations; the architect returned it on day 6 as incomplete. The contractor resubmitted a complete package on day 11, and the owner returned it 21 days later. Separately, the glass fabricator's tempering line failed, adding 9 days to fabrication - a delay the contractor has documented as its own. The contractor has filed for a 20-day time extension and waiver of liquidated damages, arguing that the curtain wall is "obviously critical" because it is the longest-lead item on the project.
1. Reconstruct the entitlement. Show the arithmetic and state how many days of time extension, if any, the contractor is entitled to, and whether liquidated damages apply.
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Rebuild the entitlement from the contract's review clock, not from the date the first submittal was sent.
Owner review time runs from receipt of a complete submittal. The first package was properly returned as incomplete (missing structural calculations) on day 6. The clock starts at day 11. The owner is allowed 14 days, so review was due day 25 and returned day 32 - 7 days owner-caused, not 20.
Contractor-caused delay on the same chain: 6 days late submittal + 9 days of glass fabrication = 15 days.
Baseline total float on the curtain wall chain: 22 days.
Consumption: 7 + 15 = 22 days. Total float is exhausted; the contract completion date does not move.
Result: 0 days of time extension. Liquidated damages do not apply, because the completion date was not exceeded. The 20-day claim fails on the arithmetic before it reaches any argument about concurrency or float ownership.
Two cautions: verify the 22-day float figure from the accepted baseline and the approved updates, not from the contractor's narrative; and if the contractor actually accelerated to hold the date and the owner directed it, the question shifts from time to cost.
2. The contractor argues that it was "obviously critical" and that float belongs to the contractor. Explain how you would rebut or accept that argument, and what contract language would have changed the outcome.
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Treat "obviously critical" as a claim that the baseline logic was wrong - a logic dispute, not a fact.
Accept the part that is true. The curtain wall is the longest-lead chain, and a long-lead item can be logically critical even when the baseline shows float, if the baseline's ties are wrong. Ask the contractor to identify the specific activities, durations, and logic links it says are incorrect. If the chain truly had zero float in the accepted schedule, the owner's 7 days becomes compensable - but still only 7, not 20.
Reject the part that is not true. Under the majority rule, and absent contrary contract language, float in the accepted baseline belongs to the project, not to either party. The contractor cannot own float that its own accepted schedule gave away - it priced the work on that logic.
Language that would have changed the outcome: a clause stating float is a shared commodity and that owner-caused delay consuming float triggers a time extension regardless of critical path; a clause requiring contemporaneous time impact analysis; or a clause allowing the contractor to buy float by accelerating. Silence favors the owner.
3. What records would you need - and what would you do differently - to make this determination defensible in a claim? Consider what changes if the contractor had accelerated.
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Records needed: date-stamped submittal transmittals; the architect's incomplete-return memo; the resubmittal date; the owner's return date; the fabricator's written notice of the tempering line failure with the date it occurred; the accepted baseline schedule with the 22-day float calculation shown; and every monthly update showing how float was consumed. A claim defended with transmittals and logic beats one defended with narrative.
What I would do differently: require a contemporaneous time impact analysis within 7 days of each delay event, and require each monthly update to report remaining float by activity - not just the critical path. That converts a post-hoc reconstruction into a record built while the facts were fresh.
If the contractor had accelerated: the question becomes whether the owner directed or constructively directed acceleration. Telling a contractor to "hold the contract date" or "maintain the schedule" is, in many jurisdictions, enough to support a constructive acceleration claim, and then the 7 owner-caused days become compensable cost even though they were never compensable time. Document instructions precisely - "maintain the contract date" is not the same instruction as "accelerate at your own cost."