20.1 Introduction

Failures of buildings or engineered facilities that involve collapse of structures or result in loss of life (referred to herein as construction failures) are usually scrutinised in a public inquiry such as a Royal Commission or Committee of Inquiry. This chapter reviews some past public inquiries into construction failures, and highlights the lessons that, in the writer's opinion, still have contemporaneous value in respect of contractual issues that were found to have relevance to the failure.