IADC member Christopher Kenney of Kenney & Sams, P.C. Boston, Massachusetts recently represented a maritime contracting company in a complex lawsuit that started in Superior Court, got transferred to arbitration, and after a five day evidentiary hearing, was moved back to court to enter judgment in the amount of $410,000 for his client and the dismissal of all counterclaims against it.
The client was hired by a town in eastern Massachusetts to deepen and realign a river that ran through the center of town. This project was necessitated by decades of erosion and sediment buildup that caused frequent flooding and millions of dollars in property damage to the town.
The construction work required the contractor to pile drive cofferdams into the riverbed to divert the water and create “dry” worksites. The contractor encountered numerous latent subsurface conditions that interfered with the work, caused delays, and cost overruns. The town had asserted a claim for liquidated damages and rejected the contractor’s request for an extension of the contract deadline and for compensation for the extra work.