{"id":901167,"date":"2023-05-16T15:27:34","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T21:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=901167"},"modified":"2023-05-16T15:27:38","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T21:27:38","slug":"labor-supervising-qualifies-after-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/labor-supervising-qualifies-after-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Maybe Supervising Qualifies as Labor After All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Christopher G. Hill | <a href=\"https:\/\/constructionlawva.com\/maybe-supervising-qualifies-as-labor-after-all\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Construction Law Musings<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remember back in 2021 when I\u00a0\u201cmused\u201d about Dickson v. Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland et al.?\u00a0 Remember how the Eastern District of Virginia held that mere supervision does not qualify as \u201clabor\u201d under the federal\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/miller-act-payment-bond-claims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Miller Act<\/a>?\u00a0 Well, the 4th Circuit recently weighed in on the appeal of that case and had some interesting things to say about the definition of labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a quick reminder, Plaintiff worked as a project manager on a project to repair and upgrade certain stairs at the Pentagon. Plaintiff subcontracted with prime contractor Forney Enterprises Inc. on this project. On Dec. 20, 2018, the prime contract was terminated. Plaintiff filed the Miller Act suit on Feb. 5, 2020. Dickson alleged that Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland, or F&amp;D, must pay him, pursuant to the Miller Act, the amount he is owed for the labor he performed on the project. Now before the district court were cross-motions for summary judgment. In evaluating Plaintiff\u2019s claims, the district court examined the defendant\u2019s claims that (1) Dickson\u2019s work did not qualify as \u201cLabor\u201d under the Miller Act, and (2) that the suit was not timely filed.&nbsp; The Eastern District of Virginia court agreed with both arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with the lower court that Dickson\u2019s supervisory work was not \u201clabor\u201d under the Miller Act.&nbsp; After a review of the history of the Miller Act (and its predecessor, the Hatch Act), the Court opined that because Dickson\u2019s work was mostly, if not all, supervision of manual labor, and not merely \u201cmental labor,\u201d the work performed qualified as labor and would have been compensable.&nbsp; The good news for Dickson was short-lived, however, because the appellate court agreed with the lower court that the statute of limitations had run and therefore the claim was barred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I highly recommend the\u00a04th Circuit opinion\u00a0to your reading.\u00a0 It goes into a fair amount of detail and analysis that is too long for a blog post but that provides good insight into the thought process courts may go through when analyzing whether certain work falls under the Miller Act and is thus allowable for a\u00a0payment bond claim.\u00a0 As always, I recommend that all construction professionals that believe they may have a Miller Act claim consult an\u00a0experienced construction attorney\u00a0to analyze the claim and provide guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When one of your cases is in need of a construction expert, estimates, insurance appraisal or umpire services in defect or insurance disputes &#8211; please call Advise &amp; Consult, Inc. at 888.684.8305, or email <a href=\"mailto:experts@adviseandconsult.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Christopher G. Hill | Construction Law Musings Remember back in 2021 when I\u00a0\u201cmused\u201d about Dickson v. Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland et al.?\u00a0 Remember how the Eastern District of Virginia held that mere supervision does not qualify as \u201clabor\u201d under the federal\u00a0Miller Act?\u00a0 Well, the 4th Circuit recently weighed in on the appeal of&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/labor-supervising-qualifies-after-all\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Maybe Supervising Qualifies as Labor After All<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[9895,12,10684,989],"class_list":["post-901167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-2","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction","tag-labor","tag-miller-act","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Maybe Supervising Qualifies as Labor After All - Advise &amp; Consult, Inc.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"does supervision qualify as \u201clabor\u201d under the federal Miller Act? 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