What if payment disputes or issues don’t arise until two or three years after the project, or even longer? I know in Louisiana we call it prescription and the rest of the country, they call it a statue of limitation, but what triggers those timelines?
So here’s the deal about construction projects, if it is a tort claim and you’re a subcontractor or a general contractor and you have a suit against a third party or a third party has a suit against you say, the contractor wants to do the design professional. There’s usually no contract privity between them. So that would be a negligence claim that triggers you to have a one year period in Louisiana, a one year prescription period. It triggers at the time that you become aware of the issue. So this is a really important point because what can happen is you are aware of errors or omissions in those drawings early on in the project. And then you don’t see until a couple years after the project’s over there’s case law that says that your claims would be prescribed, which means they would be too late and additional. In addition to that, we have perception prevention. Preemption is statute of repose in other states. And you have a five year period in which you can be sued on a project, or you can sue through a contractual relationship from the date of substantial completion or abandonment. And there’s specific statutes that govern that as to design professionals and contractors.