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The Concept Of Cardinal Change

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Legal Research Assignment
My legal research paper is on the concept of Cardinal change. Cardinal change is one of three legal classifications of change. A change is define as followed; “Any alteration to a contract permitted by the Changes clause of a contract.” (Nash, Scooner, & O 'Brien, 2007). “Most construction contracts contain a clause governing changes that allows the owner to change or modify the work required under the contract documents.” (Loulakis & Santiago, 2001). When clause mentioned above is included in the contractor it means the contractor is typically required to perform the change. Now a cardinal change is considered a major change to the contract. A Cardinal change is define as followed; “A change that is beyond the …show more content…

Air-a-plane Corporation v. the United States, 408 F.2d 1030 (Ct. Cl. 1969), is the first case I’m going discuss in which cardinal change was used for the basis of a law suit. Air-A-Plane Corporation sign a contract with the Army Chemical Corps to make over 1100 smoke generators which were designated to be M3A1. The total fixed-price contract price was $607,101.04. The major issue that occur with the agreement was the large number of changes made by the Government after the contract was awarded. Yes, the contain the clause governing changes that allowed Army Chemical Corps to change or modify the work required but Air-A-Plane Corporation did not expect such a large number of changes. “This belief was based principally on the fact that the contract, by way of detailed and comprehensive specifications and drawings, described the contract items minutely. This belief was apparently also based in part upon the fact that the contract was a fixed price contract." (Justia, 1969). For the first issue the board found that a large number of changes were made after the contract was awarded. Whether they look at the number Air-A-Plane Corporation submitted or the one Army Chemical Corps submitted, the number was still large. “The first change

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