International Construction Law Review
PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES—THE NEED FOR UNCONDITIONAL WARRANTIES
I N D WALLACE QC
Editor, Hudson’s Building and Engineering Contracts
In Robert Jones (363 Adelaide Street)
v. First Abbott Corporation,
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the original owners of a project for a multi-storey commercial building with a glass curtain-wall facade in Queensland became insolvent and abandoned the project when construction had reached ground level. The plaintiff (later) owners then acquired the project from the receivers, and engaged the defendant developers (under a “development contract”) to modify the previous design so as to secure economies and to make arrangements to complete the project, for which purpose the developer defendants later entered into a contract with their contractor co-defendants (the “building contract”). The plaintiff owners also engaged their own (also co-defendant) architects (the “consultant architects”), under a limited mandate to protect their interest in the appearance and commercial aspects of the building, while the defendant developers engaged the architects who had been responsible for the original design (the “project architects”), to supervise the building contract (who would be in a good position to consider any proposed modifications of their previous design). However, the final design of the building contract appears to have resulted from changes in the original plans and specifications proposed in the first instance by the defendant main contractors to the defendant developers in order to achieve the required price economies.
As a result of discussion between the (then prospective) main contractors and specialist glass subcontractors, the contractors’ initial proposal to the developers for a more economical glass facade wall was for an “aluminium framed curtain wall system” comprising an agreed modified aluminium frame and “bronze reflective heat-strengthened
glass”. However, after further discussions between the contractors, the specialist subcontractors, the latter’s Australian suppliers and the project architects, the proposed building contract specification was altered to “a stick construction glazed curtain-wall” using “McDowell Pacific Ltd Super ‘R’ S20 on Bronze Float” (again a heat-strengthened
glass), and the building contractors then based their final main contract price, which was subsequently accepted, on the specialist subcontractors’ quotation for this latter glass. However, after still further consideration of the design loadings between the project engineers, the
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People in Glass Houses—The Need for Unconditional Warranties
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