The quantification of construction contractors' claims

This thesis is about the monetary evaluation to be placed upon claims commonly advanced by construction contractors. The perspective of the study is that of the claims analyst. Something is said about the likely qualities of the analyst and the approach to the analyst’s work. The thesis addresses two basic propositions: (a) that it is important in the resolution of the quantification problems to integrate the various functional disciplines concerned with or having an influence on the problem. Aside from law, the main disciplines considered to be of primary relevance are economics, accounting and the construction process itself, with particular emphasis on the organisation and management of that process; (b) that the analyst should deploy, in his or her work, a checklist of cardinal evaluation factors against which particular claims are, or ought to be, examined and tested. After analysing current practice and literature a discussion is undertaken of topics fundamental to the subject. These are the contractual interests protected, causation, and the nature and relevance of cost. Candidates for the cardinal principles of evaluation are identified in those early chapters and are thereafter derived in one chapter. The justification for such principles is their assistance toward the goal of neither under- nor over-estimating the valuation. The remainder of the material relates to applications; each of the propositions is analysed in the context of that material and conclusions drawn on an intermediate basis. This is done by exposing each of the subjects or resources concerned to the relevant principles of the functional disciplines and the cardinal evaluation principles. It is concluded, in the final chapter, that the propositions are made out and that the proper and balanced application of the two propositions is likely to provide superior answers to the evaluation problem.