Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions

Ground condition is one of the factors that determine the project successfulness. The unforeseen ground condition defined as an un-anticipated physical condition other than weather, climate, or another act of God discovered on site during the works commencement. The worse ground condition makes the...

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Main Author:	Permana, Assad Idea
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2015
Subjects:	TH Building construction
Online Access:	http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77627/1/AssadIdeaPermanaMFAB20151.pdf
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id	my-utm-ep.77627
record_format	uketd_dc
spelling	my-utm-ep.776272018-06-26T07:37:06Z Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions 2015-09 Permana, Assad Idea TH Building construction Ground condition is one of the factors that determine the project successfulness. The unforeseen ground condition defined as an un-anticipated physical condition other than weather, climate, or another act of God discovered on site during the works commencement. The worse ground condition makes the greater the risk. These risk surely has a cost, which sometimes can be catastrophic. In most ground conditions, the certainty of ground condition is quite a challenge, even for a geotechnical expert. Under established common law principles, the discovery of any small or large degree of differences (unforeseen ground condition) will not entitle the contractor for any extra cost neither the right to abandon the works. The contractor should ensure and satisfy themself by a proper site investigation to all the risks, before entering into any construction projects. The scope is the cases from common law jurisdictions using traditional lump sum contract that are reported in previous 5 years. Thus, the objectives of this study is to examine the extent of contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions and methods to make the unforeseen become foreseeable (predictable). Due to logistical issues, this study uses a combination of literature review and case law analysis methods. The cases are extracted from Lexis Malaysia online database. The findings of the study are: for the first objective, it is discovered that the contractor is totally liable, unless there is a breach of warranty by the employer, or there is a misstatement or misrepresentation by the employer or engineer; for the second objective, it is found that there are some methods that the contractor may adopt in order to determine and analyse the risks of unforeseen ground conditions: they are, geophysical seismic, borehole, in-situ test, and trial pit. In summary, it may be concluded that, in certain limited exceptions, a contractor in a lump sum contract is totally liable for differing site condition; and there are methods that a contractor may use to evaluate and reduce this risk. 2015-09 Thesis http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77627/ http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77627/1/AssadIdeaPermanaMFAB20151.pdf application/pdf en public http://dms.library.utm.my:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:106717 masters Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Faculty of Built Environment Faculty of Built Environment
institution	Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
collection	UTM Institutional Repository
language	English
topic	TH Building construction
spellingShingle	TH Building construction Permana, Assad Idea Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions
description	Ground condition is one of the factors that determine the project successfulness. The unforeseen ground condition defined as an un-anticipated physical condition other than weather, climate, or another act of God discovered on site during the works commencement. The worse ground condition makes the greater the risk. These risk surely has a cost, which sometimes can be catastrophic. In most ground conditions, the certainty of ground condition is quite a challenge, even for a geotechnical expert. Under established common law principles, the discovery of any small or large degree of differences (unforeseen ground condition) will not entitle the contractor for any extra cost neither the right to abandon the works. The contractor should ensure and satisfy themself by a proper site investigation to all the risks, before entering into any construction projects. The scope is the cases from common law jurisdictions using traditional lump sum contract that are reported in previous 5 years. Thus, the objectives of this study is to examine the extent of contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions and methods to make the unforeseen become foreseeable (predictable). Due to logistical issues, this study uses a combination of literature review and case law analysis methods. The cases are extracted from Lexis Malaysia online database. The findings of the study are: for the first objective, it is discovered that the contractor is totally liable, unless there is a breach of warranty by the employer, or there is a misstatement or misrepresentation by the employer or engineer; for the second objective, it is found that there are some methods that the contractor may adopt in order to determine and analyse the risks of unforeseen ground conditions: they are, geophysical seismic, borehole, in-situ test, and trial pit. In summary, it may be concluded that, in certain limited exceptions, a contractor in a lump sum contract is totally liable for differing site condition; and there are methods that a contractor may use to evaluate and reduce this risk.
format	Thesis
qualification_level	Master's degree
author	Permana, Assad Idea
author_facet	Permana, Assad Idea
author_sort	Permana, Assad Idea
title	Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions
title_short	Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions
title_full	Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions
title_fullStr	Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions
title_full_unstemmed	Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions
title_sort	contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions
granting_institution	Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Faculty of Built Environment
granting_department	Faculty of Built Environment
publishDate	2015
url	http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/77627/1/AssadIdeaPermanaMFAB20151.pdf
_version_	1747817793486585856

Contractor’s liability under unforeseen ground conditions

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