{"id":902252,"date":"2024-02-08T16:41:43","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T23:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=902252"},"modified":"2024-02-08T16:41:46","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T23:41:46","slug":"fighting-on-two-fronts-risks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/fighting-on-two-fronts-risks\/","title":{"rendered":"The Risk of Fighting on Two Fronts: Court Admits Evidence of General Contractor\u2019s Claims Against Other Parties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>John Mark Goodman and E. Mabry Rogers | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildsmartbradley.com\/2024\/02\/the-risk-of-fighting-on-two-fronts-court-admits-evidence-of-general-contractors-claims-against-other-parties\/?utm_source=Bradley+Arant+Boult+Cummings+LLP+-+BuildSmart&amp;utm_campaign=936e3e6213-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_b504caf31b-936e3e6213-78863422\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">BuildSmart<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court in\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buildsmartbradley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2024\/01\/039111066496.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">AECOM v. Flatiron<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is back at it issuing additional evidentiary rulings as the parties head to trial later this month. These latest rulings highlight the risk of seeking the same damages from multiple parties, sometimes referred to as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/is-this-a-forum-selection-clause-or-not\/\">fighting on two fronts<\/a>.\u201d As you may recall,\u00a0<em>AECOM v. Flatiron<\/em>\u00a0involves claims by the general contractor, FlatIron, against the designer, AECOM, for cost overruns totaling $263 million on a Colorado DOT project. At trial, AECOM intends to introduce evidence that Flatiron sought to recover from other parties for at least some of those same cost overruns. This includes a \u201cSpecial Request for Equitable Adjustment\u201d that Flatiron submitted to CDOT, as well as claims made by Flatiron against various subcontractors. In connection with those other claims, Flatiron purportedly blamed parties other than AECOM for causing project delays and sought amounts that are inconsistent with Flatiron\u2019s damage claim against AECOM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Flatiron moved to exclude evidence of these other claims on various grounds, including Rules 401 (relevance), 403 (unfair prejudice), 404 (character evidence), and 408 (settlement discussions).&nbsp;The court rejected each of those arguments, reasoning that such evidence is both relevant and persuasive. For example, with respect to the claims against other subcontractors, the court concluded that such evidence \u201cis relevant to show that although Flatiron has alleged that AECOM is responsible for nearly all of the Project\u2019s cost overruns, Flatiron has also had disputes with several subcontractors who worked on the Project. AECOM\u2019s argument that Flatiron sued the other subcontractors for far more than the $1.5 million difference in overruns it otherwise wholly attributes to AECOM is persuasive [and] relevant to AECOM\u2019s defense that Flatiron has overreached in its causation and subsequent damages analysis.\u201d The court\u2019s decision highlights an issue that contractors often face when dealing with disputes from upstream and downstream parties on the same project. If you choose to fight on multiple fronts by pursuing claims against multiple parties, you run the risk that someone will argue and be allowed to introduce evidence of the related disputes, which may be inconsistent with or damaging to your position in the current litigation.&nbsp; This has obvious implications to a trial, whether to a judge, a jury, or arbitration panel. It also should serve as a reminder to a project participant that it should choose its targets carefully in project correspondence and should be careful in how it words a letter, whether a claim notice or a response to a routine job change order request.<\/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>John Mark Goodman and E. Mabry Rogers | BuildSmart The court in\u00a0AECOM v. Flatiron\u00a0is back at it issuing additional evidentiary rulings as the parties head to trial later this month. These latest rulings highlight the risk of seeking the same damages from multiple parties, sometimes referred to as \u201cfighting on two fronts.\u201d As you may&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/fighting-on-two-fronts-risks\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Risk of Fighting on Two Fronts: Court Admits Evidence of General Contractor\u2019s Claims Against Other Parties<\/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":[172],"tags":[9895,27],"class_list":["post-902252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-law-2","tag-advise-consult","tag-construction-law","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>The Risk of Fighting on Two Fronts: Court Admits Evidence of General Contractor\u2019s Claims Against Other Parties - Advise &amp; 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