{"id":1006,"date":"2012-05-07T12:42:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-07T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lienitnow.com\/blog\/index.php\/2012\/05\/07\/architect-and-engineers-get-no-respect-from-miller-act\/"},"modified":"2012-05-07T12:42:00","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T12:42:00","slug":"architect-and-engineers-get-no-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lienitnow.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/architect-and-engineers-get-no-respect.html","title":{"rendered":"Architect and Engineers Get No Respect from Miller Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The purpose of the Miller Act is to provide security of payment to those who perform work on a Federal Project, but do not have a direct contract with the owner. The Miller Act requires that a &#8220;payment bond&#8221; be procured on all Federal Projects, which inures to the benefit of the subcontractors and suppliers.<\/p>\n<p>But what happens when a prime contractor (a company with a contract with the owner) hires a design professional such as an architect or an engineer? Despite the Act&#8217;s inclusive language regarding&nbsp;the range of contractors&nbsp;that qualify for&nbsp;protections,&nbsp;design firms providing professional services to a prime contractor on a federal project&nbsp;do not have rights under the Miller Act to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lienitnow.com\/Bond-Claim-faq.asp\">make a claim against the prime contractor\u2019s payment bond<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an odd exclusion, and reflects the way projects were conceived, planned and constructed before the days of more creative construction planning came about.&nbsp;There is, however, a limited exception to the general rule: if the design professional such as an architect or engineer performs on-site supervision or inspection duties, then the professional will be entitled to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lienitnow.com\/file-bond-claim.asp\">file a bond claim<\/a> under the Miller Act. <\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/la.findacase.com\/research\/wfrmDocViewer.aspx\/xq\/fac.19350312_0040205.C05.htm\/qx\">American Surety Co. of New York v. United States ex rel. Barrow-Agee Labs.<\/a>, 76 F.2d 67 (5th Cir. 1935) originally ruled on the question of what constitutes \u201clabor.\u201d In that case, the work performed&nbsp;was the&nbsp;inspection and analyzation of&nbsp;loads of gravel being placed for the construction of roads in Louisiana. Holding that the work&nbsp;\u201cinvolved considerable physical labor and some experience and skill,\u201d the court&nbsp;found that \u201c[a]n ordinary workman could do it after being shown and having some practice.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>In the seminal case of <a href=\"http:\/\/va.findacase.com\/research\/wfrmDocViewer.aspx\/xq\/fac.19710823_0000046.EVA.htm\/qx\">United States ex rel. Thayer v. Metro Construction Corp.<\/a>, 330 F. Supp. 386 (E.D.Va. 1971), the court ruled engineers who prepare designs, drawings and specifications&nbsp;are not protected by the Miller Act and therefore cannot file or enforce claims&nbsp;on the prime contractor\u2019s payment bond. <\/p>\n<p>In general, since the Thayer case, the courts have focused on the nature of the services and&nbsp;how and where they are performed in order to determine whether&nbsp;Miller Act protection applies to the architect or engineer. <\/p>\n<p>In short, if a design professional performs purely off site work, it will not be protected by the Miller Act. However, on-site services that relate to the construction, such as supervisory or inspection services, will most likely be covered by the Miller Act, and a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lienitnow.com\/Bond-Claim-faq.asp\">Miller Act bond claim<\/a> can be pursued.&nbsp; Keep in mind, however, that the Miller Act will only permit recovery in most instances only to the value of the on-site work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The purpose of the Miller Act is to provide security of payment to those who perform work on a Federal Project, but do not have a direct contract with the owner. The Miller Act requires that a &#8220;payment bond&#8221; be procured on all Federal Projects, which inures to the benefit of the subcontractors and suppliers. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1771,1775,1770,1772,1774,1769,1773],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Architect and Engineers Get No Respect from Miller Act - Tools of the Trade | LienItNow Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The purpose of the Miller Act is to provide security of payment to those who perform work on a Federal Project, but do not have a direct contract with the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lienitnow.com\/blog\/2012\/05\/architect-and-engineers-get-no-respect.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Architect and Engineers Get No Respect from Miller Act - 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