Q: Why Is It That Engineered Construction beneath the Surface of the Earth Remains the Number-One Source of Claims? A: Duh.

“Dance of the Goony Birds” is how ASFE Past President Jerome C. “Jerry” Neyer, P.E. (NTH Consultants, Ltd.) describes the gyrations project participants engage in when serious problems arise and disputes and claims seem likely. Chances are you’ve seen the dance, where most project participants shake their heads in disbelief and despair, point their fingers at everyone else, and yell at the top of their voices, “It wasn’t me.” Then, just to spice things up a bit, each brings in a lawyer and an expert who do the exact same thing, but at much higher hourly rates.

Face facts: Any project problem tends to eventually involve all or almost all project participants, meaning that all project participants have a vested interest in preventing problems to begin with, and addressing those that arise while they are still molehills.

Here’s another fact: The leading cause of construction-industry disputes is problems associated with engineered construction beneath the surface of the earth. Subsurface information that’s inadequate for effective bidding. Unanticipated conditions. Delays. Unpredicted settlement. Floor-slab heaves and cracking. Pavement failures. Retaining-wall bulges and collapses. And so on. As such, all project participants – the owner, the prime design professional, other members of the design team, the contractor, and a number of subcontractors – all have or should have a particular interest in keeping subsurface problems to a minimum. But they sure use some odd techniques to demonstrate that vested interest. Examples:

• Recommend opening the geoprofessional “competition” to all “real” geoprofessional in the area (i.e., firms and individuals listed in the Yellow Pages).
• Suggest that “it’s a waste to pay those rates, because any firm can do a good job” when someone intelligent suggests that it may be wise to select a well-known geoprofessional firm based on competence and experience.
• Even though countless case histories demonstrate that project risk is inversely proportional to project size and complexity, take every available shortcut when the project is small and/or lacks complexity.
• In every stage of the project’s geoprofessional aspects, recognize that a dollar saved early on could easily grow to $1.25 in two or three years; i.e., only sissies go for the long-term cost savings derived from quality.
• Base selection of the geoprofessional on the fee to be charged, knowing that this encourages all participants to propose the cheapest service they can live with, while eliminating from competition those that know they cannot outbid firms that have no assets (and usually no worthwhile insurance) and so don’t worry about getting sued.
• Limit the bidding only to firms that have insurance, not realizing that the policy they have in place at the time they submit their bid will not be the policy (if any) that will respond when a problem occurs.
• Do not engage in mutual service-scope development (it takes so long, anyway), and instead have each firm dream up its own scope to bid on, or have people who are not geoprofessionals (but who arrogantly believe they somehow know so much more than geoprofessionals) create a scope that “levels the playing field.”
• No matter how the scope gets put together, cheapen it up before implementing it in order to save a few bucks, and/or do not spend anything extra when conditions suggest that more exploration, testing, or analysis is really, really needed.
• Always ask geoprofessionals for a “value engineered” approach in order to avoid paying the higher cost of implementing better recommendations. (Remember to whine, “This is just way more than we thought it would be.”)
• Do not retain geoprofessionals to review others’ interpretation of the geoprofessional findings and recommendations, because the others can get it right (their lack of geoprofessional competence and insurance company data notwithstanding) and, besides, it’s just anther ploy that geoprofessionals apply so they can charge more.
  
• Do not retain the geoprofessional of record to be on site during excavation, because – even though the geoprofessional knows more about the project’s subsurface conditions than anyone else – some other firm can do it cheaper (in part because their field representatives won’t waste time calling the geoprofessional of record when they are confused by what they see, because the geoprofessional of record is a competitor).
  
• Retain the cheapest firm available to perform construction materials engineering and testing (CoMET) services, because they all claim to meet the same standards, all claim to have the same quality employees, the same quality equipment, and so on.
• Don’t bother having the CoMET personnel on site full time. The contractors can be trusted to meet all the specs.
  
• Don’t ask the geoprofessional to prequalify contractors. Bidding works great (even though, in the recorded history of mankind, the price bid has almost never been the price actually paid).
• And no matter what, treat geoprofessionals like the bastard children of the design team or, better yet, don’t include them on the team at all, because, after all, what do they know

You’re in a position to inform owners and design professionals about some simple steps they can take to sit out the next Dance of the Goony Birds. Remind them that the dance takes a long time, is never much fun, and the cover charge can be a real killer.