The global approach - Building Contract Claims - page 138

Chapter 8
The global approach
In general, it is necessary for the contractor to establish each and every head
of claim, by means of supporting documentation and other evidence. London
Underground Ltd v. Kenchington Ford plc and Others 400 concerned, among
other things, a claim for delay due to the alleged excessive number of
requests for information (RFIs) which had to be made. The judge neatly
summarised the position:
'In the manner of pointing a blunderbuss at a target it is maintained that
there were many RFIs, and there was considerable delay. The delay in
part can be explained by other causes but a balance is left which must be
caused by the volume of RFIs. And by reason of the volume of them
negligence must be concluded. It is termed a global claim. It can properly
be described as a global claim in the sense that it is the antithesis of a
claim where the causal nexus between the alleged wrongful act or omis-
sion of the defendant and the loss of the plaintiff has been clearly spelt
out and pleaded.' 401
In another case, not concerned with construction, such claims were termed
'total-total', where the totality of the losses is attributable to the totality of
misrepresentations, breaches of contract and acts of negligence. This is
compared to a 'cumulative-total' case where the cumulative effect of all
the breaches led to the totality of the losses claimed 402 . This concept was
explained later in an extract from the particulars of claim:
' ''Accordingly, it is not primarily the plaintiff's case that particular aspects
of the losses are individually attributable to any particular misrepresen-
tation, breach of contract or act of negligence. The plaintiff's case is that in
respect of each of the allegations of misrepresentation, breach of contract
and negligence the cumulative effect thereof led to the totality of the losses
claimed in the action. Further, as set out in more detail hereunder, some of
the individual acts of misrepresentation, breach of contract and negligence
were sufficient to cause the entirety of the plaintiff's losses.
Generally, however, it is not possible directly to attach individual
losses to individual allegations of misrepresentation, breach of contract
or negligence in the manner implied by the form of request. The plain-
tiff's case is that the totality of the losses claimed arise from the totality of