Key Challenges to Design Professional Liability in the Design-Build Environment

Abstract

In the integrated environment of design-build (DB), design risk is transferred from the owner to the DB team. One significant challenge to DB projects is design liability. This study discusses important challenges related to design professional liability issues in the transportation DB industry. This study developed a national survey and distributed it to a wide range of subject-matter experts from multiple disciplines: design consultants, highway contractors, public owners, owner representatives, and insurance and legal advisors. The study identified two broad areas of challenges for design liability: design claim issues and heightened standards of care. The results show that industry professionals hold different and often conflicting perceptions regarding the severity of design liability issues. Subject-matter experts from various industry stakeholder groups expressed different viewpoints regarding the increased number of design claims in transportation DB projects. They had considerably different perceptions regarding the importance of significant design sources in the DB environment. It was found that language on heightened standard of care can be identified more frequently in DB projects than in traditional design-bid-build projects. This research was the first national study to identify design liability issues in the context of the transportation DB industry. Its findings contribute to a better understanding of key challenges in design liability and provide insights into and opportunities for decision makers to reduce design liability issues.