In a message dated 98-08-04 10:30:25 EDT, you write:

<< << Ever since Solomon (I believe - or was it Hammurabi?) decided that if a
  building failed, the architect was to be executed -- we've been watching our
  backs.  Do you GCs have to worry to the same extent?  It seems that in any
  lawsuits responsibility all points back to the architect. >> >>

Ken replied that since builders and workers are physically closer to the
hazardous conditions of day-to-day construction, they do worry about same.....

I would like to comment that ALL problems on projects wind up being the
responsibility of the lowest-tier subcontractor in each trade area -- if you
don't believe me, read any AIA
model contract, and know that a version of it is used all the way down the
line..... and
the contracts we sign here at the bottom generally state that we are
responsible for
all work in "our section", which USUALLY has been written so vaguely as to
make
us responsible for the original piping, hollow wall blocking, anything......

Things don't fit, we have to reorder, materials and time end up costing more
than
the original bid, people cut corners, get angry, argue...... don't have time
to do the
written documenting and negotiating necessary to handle things the way the
framers
of the contract envisioned, and ultimately,

the littlest ppl, lacking the resources to gain effective remedy in the
courts, have
either finished the work in some fashion,  and gone broke, or gone broke and
not
finished the work....

the next tiers, up through the general contractor, usually have resources to
litigate, and way too much invested in the project and company to just walk
away or die,  so litigate they
do.......
there's no point suing the little ppl like me, I'm broke remember ?  or
dead......
SO they sue the next higher authority, the  damn design professional  ;)

Over the last ten years, this business has changed dramatically, at least here
in the
midwest.....  when I started in 1980, virtually all of our work was done on a
handshake,
bids were called in by phone with no disclaimers the day of the bid, etc.....
Now the rules seem to be "screw you before you screw me" on bid work, and a
bunch
of the building projects I've participated on were scenes of short tempers,
material
substitutions,  hasty fixes, and all of the associated nightmares -- the
assembled
subs and trades being the poor bastards unlucky enough to have made some
mistake
in their bid and therefore having been "awarded" the contract.

Doesn't that inspire goodwill and confidence, knowing that the building is
being built
by the 35 or 40 subcontractors who made the biggest mistake on their bids, and
the
GC who used those prices?  Regarding the GC, if he/she uses a price that is
low,
and sometimes WAY low, you have to assume that they are either too dumb to
know
there's something wrong with the price (eeek!), or too mean or greedy, OR
DESPERATE
to care that the sub is going to die, literally or figuratively, on the
project  (eeek!).

There's a saying that you-know-what runs downhill,  but the converse is true
too,
because if you pile enough of it in the bottom of a hole, eventually the level
will
rise to the point where the makers of the downhill-running substance can't
help but
get  a little inundated themselves......  ;)

Deb Bledsoe,  former girl manure shoveler

not currently working any publicly bid job, negotiated work only  ;)