Unpaid subcontractors on federal government projects typically have payment bond rights that allow subcontractors to sue for payment to which they are entitled. There are many deadlines subcontractors must meet to preserve their rights under a payment bond. One deadline requires subcontractors to file a payment bond claim no later than one year after the day on which the last of the labor was performed or material was supplied by the person bringing the action.

One year seems like plenty of time to file a payment bond claim, but you would be surprised how many subcontractors wait until the last possible second to file a payment bond lawsuit. That’s dangerous because it may subject an otherwise valid payment bond claim to the argument that it’s untimely because it wasn’t filed within one year of the last performance of the subcontractor’s work.

That’s exactly what happened in a very recent federal court case, United States ex rel. RCO Construction, LLC v. Federal Insurance Company. In that case,  a federal court judge provided one of the most thorough analyses of the one year statute of limitations for federal payment bond claims I have ever seen.Continue Reading The One Year Statute of Limitations for Subcontractor Federal Payment Bond Claims