Shelley v. Kofka

DRAPEAU, J.

Plaintiff furnished and laid carpet upon certain floors in defendants’ dwelling house. One thousand dollars was paid to plaintiff on account, by defendants’ interior decorator. When, upon completion of the work, plaintiff’s bill for the balance due of $2,223.74 was presented to them defendants refused to pay it.

Plaintiff’s complaint was in two counts: First, for the reasonable value of the carpet; and, secondly, for the foreclosure of his asserted mechanic’s lien upon defendants’ real property.

As to the first count, the trial court found that defendants purchased the carpet from the interior decorator as an independent contractor and not from plaintiff; that defendants were billed for the carpet by the interior decorator and they paid him in full; and that plaintiff did not sell and deliver the carpet to defendants.

Then, notwithstanding the foregoing findings, the court found that $2,000 was the reasonable value of the carpet and that defendants were indebted to plaintiff in the sum of $1,000, “inasmuch as $1,000 had been paid to plaintiff” by the interior decorator. Judgment for plaintiff for $1,000 was directed in accordance with this finding.

No findings were made as to the second count, defendants’ motion for a nonsuit as to that count having been granted.

Plaintiff testified that the reasonable value of the carpet as laid upon the floors of defendants’ house was $3,223.74. There was no other testimony as to value. Therefore, if plaintiff was entitled to a judgment at all, it should have been for $2,223.74. As to the fact of indebtedness, however, the record would support a finding, either that the carpet was laid at the instance and request of defendants, or that plaintiff dealt directly with an independent contractor.

The house was furnished and decorated by an interior decorator employed by defendants. Plaintiff and the interior decorator testified that the defendant wife talked with plaintiff

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before the carpet was laid, and that she was advised by them that she was to pay plaintiff for it. Defendant wife testified that she never knew or met plaintiff, nor had she had any conversation with him until she got his bill, whereupon she telephoned him that she had already paid the interior decorator. And the exhibits show that defendants paid the interior decorator $5,175, for which they received only the carpet and some material.