Gorman Exploration or “How to complete a good job and still get sued”

Have you ever had a gut feeling about a project? You know, one that just didn't feel right. I had that kind of feeling about Gorman Exploration in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Our company was set up for a project manager to take a project from conception to punch out. This is what I was use to. Bob Newton, the big fig as we called him, thought that two project managers in the same town was too much. He wanted one project manager to do both projects. Since I would be in Lafayette doing the Creole Project which could not be given to another manager, I would do both.

The logic of one project manager for both projects makes sense, except I didn't know anything about Gorman. Even though I had built the first Creole job, the project was so complicated that I felt as though it was the priority and Gorman would be secondary.

The Gorman project was a multi story building with the first floor open except for a fountain and an elevator. If you are not familiar with exploration companies, the first thing you need to know is they are very security conscious. Only personnel with security clearance can enter the elevator. If you were invited to their office, you would be met by the person you were meeting on the first floor at the elevator and would be escorted to where you are going in the building.

I was behind the eight ball and was playing catch up all the way through the construction process. It look like it was going to be a very good job. We finished on budget and on schedule and every one seemed happy. But my gut kept telling me something was going to go wrong.

You remember that fountain on the first floor. Some one from Gorman saw a fountain similar and wanted the same for their building. It would spray a ball and give a soothing sound. A great idea except we are on the Gulf Coast and any one on the Gulf Coast will tell you not only there is a wind factor but a humidity factor.

With the fountain came sensors, when the wind blows the sensors would turn off the fountain. When it rains the sensors would turn off the fountain. So in the this particular location the fountain would start up and kick off every ten or fifteen minutes either by wind or by the one hundred percent humidity. Of course this was unacceptable to the owners who wanted the fountain to work one hundred percent of the time.

The meeting was quite ugly when I told them that the fountain could not be fixed due to the wind and the humidity. They turned the fountain off and sue us. We had an ace in the hole.

The ace was a letter I had written to the company representative early in construction stating that after reading the specifications on the fountain and finding out wind would affect the performance that we should find another fountain or drop the fountain altogether. I knew rain would turn the fountain off but I didn't think of humidity until after the building was built. The humidity would be so thick that the sensors thought it was rain.

He had the feeling that we didn't want to put in a fountain, so he wrote me back a letter insisting not only on a fountain but this particular fountain. He totally dismissed my concerns.

When we got to arbitration I sat through two days of hearing how bad we were as contractors. When it was our turn, I was the first and only witness for the defendants. The letter I wrote to Gorman was produced as well as the return letter from Gorman addressed to me. I explained my concerns in my letter and the owners response. Of course, this is one in which we won the battle and lost the war. I don't think we ever worked for Gorman again.