What liability does a civil engineer have for underestimating a quantiy in preparing the contract documents bid form. Especially if there are no damages incured by the client. Double especially if the the actual contract plus additional quanity is $70,000 vs. my engieers estimate of $90,000. Triple especially if the city's own original budgeted amount for this project was $450,000.
LONG VERSION OF THE STORY:
I'm a civil consultant hired by city to design and prepare construction documents for retrofitting a BMP devise into and existing stormwater detention pond. I prepared the design and bid documents and calculated a volume of unclassified excavation for the forebay and micropool to be 700 cy. I failed to include excavation for the concrete checkdam walls and the excavation required to place rip rap. I figure that those items would have added 500 cy to the total. The contracor claimed 1700 cy total, I believe after the fact based on load count. The unit price bid on the excavation was $5.50 per cy so the total dollar overrun is small at $2750 by my estimate and $5500 by the contractors claim. The city has invited me in to talk about this because it was a large percentage overrun. I was told that they may be asking for us to share in the added cost. In my opinion there is no basis for coming after the engineer because there have been no damages incured by the city, beacause if the quanitity had been correct in the first place they still would have gone through with the project.
LONG VERSION OF THE STORY:
I'm a civil consultant hired by city to design and prepare construction documents for retrofitting a BMP devise into and existing stormwater detention pond. I prepared the design and bid documents and calculated a volume of unclassified excavation for the forebay and micropool to be 700 cy. I failed to include excavation for the concrete checkdam walls and the excavation required to place rip rap. I figure that those items would have added 500 cy to the total. The contracor claimed 1700 cy total, I believe after the fact based on load count. The unit price bid on the excavation was $5.50 per cy so the total dollar overrun is small at $2750 by my estimate and $5500 by the contractors claim. The city has invited me in to talk about this because it was a large percentage overrun. I was told that they may be asking for us to share in the added cost. In my opinion there is no basis for coming after the engineer because there have been no damages incured by the city, beacause if the quanitity had been correct in the first place they still would have gone through with the project.
