{"id":901602,"date":"2023-09-13T09:10:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T15:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=901602"},"modified":"2023-09-15T09:15:52","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T15:15:52","slug":"additional-costs-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/additional-costs-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractor Recovers COVID-19-Related Additional Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Aron C. Beezley and Lisa Markman | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildsmartbradley.com\/2023\/09\/contractor-recovers-covid-19-related-additional-costs\/?utm_source=Bradley+Arant+Boult+Cummings+LLP+-+BuildSmart&amp;utm_campaign=3a7da7d95d-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_b504caf31b-3a7da7d95d-78863422\">BuildSmart<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA), in the case of\u00a0<em>StructSure Projects, Inc.<\/em>, recently granted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/contractors\/\">COVID-19-related costs<\/a> to a contractor under a fixed-price contract. The key facts, holdings, and takeaways from this noteworthy case are discussed below. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Facts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The government awarded the contractor a fixed-price task order for design and alteration services. The task order required the contractor to provide temporary facilities for the government to use while work was being performed and included a specific contract line-item for those facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the government designated the contractor\u2019s work as non-mission essential and, thus, suspended the contractor\u2019s access to the site for 44 days. The government, however, continued to use the facilities provided by the contractor during the suspension period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The contractor submitted a claim seeking recovery of out-of-pocket rental costs incurred for the facilities resulting from the restricted access to the site, but the government denied the claim. The contractor thus filed an appeal at the ASBCA. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Holding<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The ASBCA held that, while the contractor may have assumed the risk associated with the scope of the fixed-price task order, the government modified the task order\u2019s scope, thus requiring the contractor to supply the temporary facilities for an extended period. In so holding, the ASBCA rejected the government\u2019s \u201csovereign acts defense,\u201d which generally protects the government from having to pay additional contract costs incurred as a result of a sovereign act of the government that is (1) \u201cpublic, general, and only incidentally falls upon the contractor,\u201d and (2) makes it impractical or impossible for the government to render performance under the contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More specifically, the ASBCA found that the sovereign acts defense did not apply because the government\u2019s decision to suspend the contractor\u2019s access to the site did not render supplying the temporary facilities impossible. Rather, the ASBCA noted, the government continued to use the facilities throughout the entire 44-day suspension period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The Takeaway<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Recovering additional costs incurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has, so far, been difficult for federal contractors working under fixed-price contracts. The ASBCA\u2019s decision in\u00a0<em>StructSure Projects, Inc.<\/em>, however, demonstrates that contractors do, in fact, have a potential avenue for recovery of COVID-19-related additional costs where the government changed the contractor\u2019s work and\/or continued to receive the benefit of the contract during a COVID-19-related delay. Accordingly, contractors who experienced COVID-19-related additional costs should consider whether the ASBCA\u2019s recent decision may provide them with a potential path to recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\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\">experts@adviseandconsult.net<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aron C. Beezley and Lisa Markman | BuildSmart The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA), in the case of\u00a0StructSure Projects, Inc., recently granted COVID-19-related costs to a contractor under a fixed-price contract. The key facts, holdings, and takeaways from this noteworthy case are discussed below. \u00a0\u00a0 The Facts The government awarded the contractor a&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/additional-costs-covid-19\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Contractor Recovers COVID-19-Related Additional Costs<\/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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[11956,9895,12,11113],"class_list":["post-901602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-2","tag-additional-costs","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction","tag-covid-19","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>Contractor Recovers COVID-19-Related Additional Costs - Advise &amp; 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