Dive Brief:

• If a client's plans have a glaring error – something clearly in the wrong place or a design that cannot possibly work or meet code – it's fairly well established that the contractor has to raise the issue before bidding or eat the cost of dealing with the problem later.
• It gets murky, however, when mistakes are what the law refers to as "latent" – not right in your face.
• In a recent legal case, a court ruled that the bidder on a federal project that referred to both a communications "room" and to "rooms" should have brought up the "patent" issue ahead of time.

Dive Insight:

Clearly, a client's errors are not an open door for claiming extra fees when glaring problems arise that the contractor identified and should have asked to be clarified before bidding. Where the line is between "should have/could have" and impossible is murky, however.