3720 - Board of Claims

(through Mr. Pilosi and Mr. Sebastianelli) that Mr. Pilosi would act as go-between and facilitate
utility pole relocation at the beginning of work on the Project, when, in fact, he did not; the
design errors leading to inadequate space in the right-of-way for guy wire placement; PennDOT's
decision to abandon the Construction Sequence originally mandated by it in favor of
Mr. Sebastianelli's ad hoc weekly work plans rather than allowing Intercounty to demobilize
until the utility poles were relocated; and PennDOT’s excessive delay in resolving the guy
wire/design problem; all served to force Intercounty to work out-of-sequence and in multiple
areas spread out across the Project simultaneously rather than in the more compact, linear
fashion it reasonably anticipated. PennDOT's actions also forced Intercounty to work around the
existing poles and wires, all of which caused Intercounty to experience a significant loss in
productivity.
Having determined that Intercounty suffered disruption and loss of productivity on this
Project as a result of PennDOT's active interference, the Board must now seek to quantify
Intercounty's loss of productivity. In doing so, we first acknowledge PennDOT's criticism that
Intercounty's proposed methodology (i.e. its effort to directly measure extra days/costs spent on
excavation due to the pole relocation problems) is somewhat unconventional. Intercounty does
not present the standard "measured mile" or "modified total cost" methods we usually see
proffered to quantify disruption costs. However, both "traditional" methods have their own
weaknesses; the "measured mile" being unavailable where, as here, the work disruption was
immediate and pervasive; the "modified total cost" method being less accurate, in general,
because it may include factors other than the wrong sought to be remedied (depending, inter alia,
on how broadly it is applied and how careful the modifications). Moreover, given the facts of
this case, we agree with Intercounty that it is reasonable to estimate its lost productivity by
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