Delay can be caused by many things — weather, planning
errors, change orders, contractor error and so on and on and on.
Even a minor delay can quickly cause schedule changes to snowball.
This increases the risk of multi-party litigation which often
involves layers of builders' liens and potentially complex
damage calculations of direct, indirect and impact costs.
Can you terminate the contract?
Where a party causes inexcusable delay, the most common question
that arises is whether there is a right to terminate all or part of
that party's contract. This typically requires an assessment of
whether the responsible party has failed to comply with the
contract to a "substantial degree" or whether there has
been "fundamental breach" in carrying out the contract.
These are difficult concepts to apply — especially where the
delay has not yet compounded to cause a significant schedule
change.
