Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
101. Although AA is liable to RBH equally PMI has at least a case to answer. [A partner in
PMI] was there to find out what was going on and to get to the bottom of the alternatives
which I have set out, although [a partner in AA] said that AA did not see much of him and
that its main contact was through [W]. I conclude, having seen and heard [a partner in PMI]
(and allowing for the fact that he was probably not asked about the events until some ten years
afterwards) that he almost certainly did not make any proper and thorough investigation and
was too easily persuaded by AA not to do so. [A partner in PMI] did not appear to me to be
someone who would make things up. He said that he would not have been able to give [an
employee of PMI] of RBH the information that he gave him if it was true that the drawings
had not been changed or developed or worked on in six months. He therefore accepted that,
if that was the state of affairs, he should have discovered it and therefore would not have
reported as he did. That was the purpose of his visit. I do not therefore accept evidence [of a
partner in AA] that the situation (other than in relation to co-ordination drawings) was well
known by other members of the project team from discussions between them. If it had been
known I have no doubt that someone would have intervened to warn RBH that the start
contemplated was dependent on an assumption which might turn out to be incorrect.
102. As regards the co-ordination drawings the impression was that AA would produce
them to meet TW's requirements and it attracts the same or similar criticisms and conclusion.
AA's case was that in mid-February 1987, notwithstanding the uncertainties and the consider-
able work that remained to be done, it thought that it would be able to produce the co-
ordination drawings by the time that the contractor needed them. It did so since, as [an expert
witness for AA] said: 'gut feeling told me we would have done it . . . This is not the first time
that we have been in this sort of situation'. The experts . . . also agreed that -
. . . a reasonably competent consulting engineer could anticipate commencing co-ordination
drawings for level 1 first and would not need a contractor's programme to know this on a
project such as this.
In answer to [counsel for some of the defendants], [expert witness for RBH] considered that
there was reason for someone in the position of [a partner in PMI] to have concluded that
AA should be able to get their co-ordination information (as he put it) out within three or
four months, and the level 1 drawings within about five to seven weeks from a planned start.
But were AA's forecasts and alleged feelings based on reality? In my judgment [a partner in
PMI] either did not investigate whether the drawings would be ready or was dissuaded by AA
from doing so. As a result AA managed to conceal from everybody else that it was not really
ready.
103. In my view [a partner in PMI] ought to have had a programme by which he and PMI
could have seen the progress of the production by AA of its drawings. Some such programme
had been used in the previous year. It would have enabled him to test AA's statements as it
would have had to demonstrate how it would produce the drawings. [A partner in PMI] agreed
that such programmes were desirable and that 'in order to monitor information flow you have
to have some sort of programme against which to monitor it'. He also accepted that if there
had been a clearly established programme of the release dates for the co-ordination drawings,
it was likely that things would have gone better than they in fact did. [An expert witness]
agreed with [a partner in PMI]. He also agreed that [the partner in PMI] should have got, if
not a programme, then a fairly firm plan from AA as to when it would issue co-ordination
drawings by certain dates which it considered would be more than adequate for TW. [The
expert witness] baulked at the conclusion that if that was not done then PMI did not act with
