Contract May Require Written Notice Of Failure To Perform On Time, Even When Delay Is The Other Party’s Fault.

To avoid late completion charges, Civil Code §1511 allows parties to specify in a contract that a party intending to avoid the effect of its failure to perform must assert in writing within a reasonable time that the other party’s act caused the failure.  Here the court refused to consider whose fault the delay was because the contract required that any extension of time had to be obtained through certain procedures.  But, a California Supreme Court case, issued two years before the statute was amended, [Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co. v. Pasadena City Junior College Dist. (1963) 59 Cal.2d 241, [379 P.2d 18; 28 Cal.Rptr. 714], held no damages when owner caused the delay.  The Court of Appeal held the Peter Kiewit case was superseded by the amendment to Civ.Code §1511.  Greg Opinski Construction, Inc. v. City of Oakdale   (Cal. App. Fifth Dist.; October 6, 2011) 199 Cal.App.4th 1107, [132 Cal.Rptr.3d 170].