The winter storm that brought snow, freezing temperatures, power outages, frozen water lines and bursting pipes to Texas, shutting down most construction projects in the process, forced many contractors and owners to take a look that their contracts to determine who is responsible for the ensuing delays and the costs to repair any damage.

Force

Construction lawyers routinely deal with delay claims. I have presented or defended more of them than I can remember.  That is why I was curious when, earlier this year, I received a series of email invitations to presentations on the use of “concurrent delay” as a defense to contractor or owner claims for delay damages on construction projects.  I’ve written about the subject in the past and wondered what, if anything, had changed.