A Preliminary Study on Structuring the Elements and Effects of Cause of Action in Civil Procedure of Construction Lawsuits

• Main Authors: Chung-Chih Sun, 孫崇智
• Other Authors: Jen-Rong Lee
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/31956422596354105631

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 營建工程研究所 === 102 === A lawsuit is an action filed to the court of law by involved parties when they fail to reach equitable solutions from disputes. Considering the neutrality of courts, the parties involved turn to borrowing public authority to intervene in disputes, hoping to seek for impartial and reasonable judgments. This study aims to investigate into the disputes of construction implementation. Based on the case database by Judicial Yuan, written judgments about construction lawsuits are collected, and some construction-dispute-related texts are then retrieved from those judgments. The causes of construction disputes are further examined and discussed by adopting the Fault Tree Analysis. Based on the written judgments collected by the researcher, 4 most common types of construction disputes are identified: (1) supplementary cost for the project, (2) overdue construction, (3) termination of contract, (4) damages. It is found that the demand for project’s supplementary cost is mostly attributed to construction obstacles, time extension of construction, increase in scope of construction, and increase in construction cost. What’s more, overdue construction mainly results from owners’ alterations of designs and work items during construction, contractors’ failure to carry out construction due to the underground utilities that needs relocation, contractors’ failure to carry out construction due to the overdue prior construction, climatic factors, contractors’ inconsistent products that go against the contract, contractors’ unfinished and overdue construction, overdue construction due to increase in scopes of works, failure in construction acceptance, and misinterpretation of contracts, etc. The termination of contract arises from the contractors’ breach of contract due to defective products or services delivered to clients without promised quality offered, construction delays, irresponsible supervision during construction, etc. Damages come from failure to carry out construction owing to underground utilities that need relocation, owners’ failure to hand over the construction sites to contractors on time, owners’ default on construction cost to contractors, and contractors’ suspension of work for no reason. The abovementioned causes are results derived from Fault Tree Analysis. Accordingly, managers need to take heed of some possible circumstances in the construction sites to avoid relevant disputes. Not only does this study identify the causes of disputes but it contributes to compiling relevant types of disputes based on written judgments and drawing structure charts. With the structure charts, readers are offered better understanding about their rights, thus avoiding potential disputes.