Harris v. Havenar

ASHBURN, J.

Appellants Havenar and Cantrall challenge a judgment for $2,000 in favor of respondent Ira Harris, doing business as B & H Electric, which was entered pursuant to an order affirming an arbitrators’ award and denying appellants’ motion to vacate, modify or correct the same.

J. R. Cantrall Company, a partnership, had a prime contract with Eleventh Naval District of the United States for the relocation of six steel frame buildings at the Long Beach naval shipyard. On June 11, 1956, Cantrall Company made a subcontract with respondent Ira Harris, doing business as B & H Electric, under which respondent undertook to furnish all labor, materials and other things necessary to complete in accordance with the plans and specifications all electrical work, including the removal of all electrical conduits and fixtures from the buildings which were to be moved. The prime contractor Cantrall agreed to “excavate, backfill, furnish and place concrete for the underground conduit under the supervision of the Subcontractor.” Paragraph Eighth of the subcontract provides: “If at any time any controversy should arise between the Contractor and the Subcontractor regarding anything pertaining to this agreement and which the parties hereto do not promptly adjust and determine, or which the Architect cannot decide to the satisfaction of both parties, then the written orders of the Contractor shall be followed and said controversy shall be decided by arbitration upon completion of the work.”

The subcontractor soon ran into trouble in pulling a certain cable through an underground conduit. This resulted in controversy with the prime contractor. Respondent’s petition for an order directing arbitration alleged, and the court found

[533]

to be true, “that a controversy has arisen out of said contract and now exists between Petitioner and said Jean B. Cantball and Joe G. Cantball which said controversy is as follows, to wit: whether or not Petitioner is entitled to be paid an extra for the performance of all work subsequent to the finding of a broken duct through which Petitioner was required to pull a cable and is entitled to all damages sustained by him in the furnishing of additional material and labor, including extra cable splicing, necessitated by or resulting from concrete left in such duet and the amount Petitioner is entitled to receive in payment therefor, if payment is an extra.”