3720 - Board of Claims

so poles around Section Two, the inability to place these poles would have prevented the transfer
or restringing of the utility wires in the affected section(s). This, in turn, precluded removal of
the old poles (the actual physical impediment to the new road work) until final resolution of all
the guy wire pole placement problems. Thus, it is no surprise that the Utilities, concerned with
minimizing their time on the job and maximizing their pole relocation efforts, left the job site in
October 2001 after completion of Section Three, and did not return until March 25, 2002 to
resume work in Section Two after the guy wire/design problem in Section Two was finally
resolved. Thus, we believe that the seven month delay in resolving the “guy wire issue” had a
major, adverse impact on the utility pole relocation efforts on the Project and, was, in turn, the
fundamental cause of the 223 day delay and the ongoing disruption to Intercounty’s work on the
Project.
III. LIABILITY
As set forth above, we have found that Intercounty suffered 223 days of delay and
ongoing disruption to its work on the Project because PennDOT hindered its work and actively
interfered with its performance of the Contract in the following ways: 1) by failing to act in a
manner necessary to prosecution of the work by its failure to adequately coordinate the utility
pole relocations into its plan for the roadway in the pre-Contract design phase and its failure to
provide Intercounty with plans and drawings adequate to build the Project; (2) by representing to
Intercounty that it would coordinate utility pole relocation and address any problems with the
Utilities once the work started, when, in fact, it did nothing to address pole relocation problems
for the first six months of the Project; (3) by ordering Intercounty to work the Project in a
substantially different sequence than set forth in the bid documents causing disruption and
inefficiencies rather than suspending work when the utility pole relocation delays meant the
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