Follow the Change Order Path

An unpublished opinion from a federal court in Virginia this spring provides a nice lesson in the importance of contractual change order procedures in construction agreements.

 

It stated: The Virginia Supreme Court has held that "when one furnishes labor to another under a contract which, for reasons not prejudicial to the former, is void and of no effect, he may recover the value of his services on a quantum meruit." Marine Dev't Corp. v. Rodak, 225 Va. 137, 300 S.E.2d 763, 765 (Va. 1983) (quoting Hendrickson v. Meredith, 161 Va. 193, 170 S.E. 602, 604 (1933)). "It is a general rule of law that he who gains the labor of another must make reasonable compensation for the same." Id. (punctuation and citation omitted). However, the Virginia Supreme Court has also held that "where there is an express and enforceable contract in existence which governs the rights of the parties, the law will not imply a contract in contravention thereof." Royer v. Bd. of County Supervisors of Albemarle County, 176 Va. 268, 10 S.E.2d 876, 881 (Va. 1940).

 

There you go, thanks for stopping by today. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok.  I’ll try to provide a little insight.  An electrical contractor was doing a project for a public entity.  The contractor wanted some change orders for some extra work.  The construction agreement had specific procedures to follow for requesting and receiving change orders.  The contractor followed those procedures….for awhile.  At some point, the contractor stopped following those procedures for additional extra work it did and tried to get paid.  The owner refused to pay for the extra work and then the contractor sued to recover the value of that work as being outside of the construction contract.  But the court found that the contractor failed to follow the prescribed method outlined in the parties' contract to obtain approval and payment for extra work -- a method with which it was not only familiar, but which it had in fact utilized.

 

Do you always know and understand the terms and conditions and the procedures of your construction contract for getting change orders approved? If your construction agreement has a path to follow for change orders, follow it, particularly if you’ve already started down that path once before. 

 

Click here for a nice summary and copy of the decision.

 

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