Use of Building Defect Diagnosis in Construction Litigation: Case Study of a Residential Building

With the increasing complexity of the construction industry, disputes continue to take their toll in most construction projects. Litigation is still considered one of the most common forms of dispute resolution. Construction litigation usually involves complex technical issues, several parties, and a large volume of documents to review. With the technical complexity of construction litigation, technical experts are usually hired to assist the judge and to provide their technical opinion diagnosing the dispute-associated problems. A court case was initiated by the owner of a residential building in the UAE in response to a long-unresolved dispute with the contractor and the architect due to several defects that were discovered by the owner during the construction and after receiving the project. Mediation and arbitration are not common practice as dispute resolution methods in cases of residential projects financed by government loans in the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The authors were invited to form a committee of technical experts tasked to investigate and diagnose the different technical problems and defects and present their recommendations in the form of a technical report. This paper demonstrates how the building defect diagnosis can be of great value in construction litigation to assist the judge or jury evaluating the dispute-associated problems. The work presented in this paper focuses on the defect diagnosis of one observed problem related to marble flooring. A three-level methodology for defect diagnosis is proposed and implemented, which include site inspections, subjective assessment by two marble specialists, and chemical laboratory tests. The analysis suggests that the cause of the marble problem is the natural formation of it as a stone, and the unprofessional installation method of the flooring exposed this defect. The analysis also confirms that neither the backfilling layer nor the sand layer causes this problem as claimed by the building owner. The court judge has issued his final decision based on the experts’ analysis and recommendations and the case has been settled.