Scribante v. Edwards

BRITTAIN, J.

The defendant owner appeals from a judgment on a mechanic’s lien. As stated in the opening brief, the single point presented is upon the interpretation of the contract. No authorities are cited in the briefs. The contract was evidenced by two writings, both prepared by the architect employed by the owner, one in form an offer to do the work, and the other a formal acceptance of the offer. The work was to lay a concrete floor in the basement of an old building, under which there was a pressure of water, causing it to percolate through the old floor and to flood the base

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ment. When the writings were prepared the basement was flooded to a depth of about eighteen inches and the old floor was covered with mud. It was impracticable, if not impossible, to ascertain the condition of the old floor, and the architect and contractor, at least, assumed it was substantially level. The offer was to pump out and to clean the basement and to do certain other work in addition to the main work of laying the concrete floor. Upon the assumption of substantial uniformity of the surface of the old floor, the contractor computed the amount of concrete which would be required to lay a floor with a foundation five inches thick with a surface of an additional thickness of one inch. The architect was not at that time sure whether a floor of the thickness bid upon would be sufficiently strong to stop out the percolating water; a unit price for extra thickness was fixed by a computation of the area of the basement multiplied by one inch to ascertain the number of cubic yards of concrete which would be required for each additional inch of thickness.

The clauses of the contract which are in question are the_ following: “Lay a concrete floor over the entire surface of the basement not less than five inches thick with good and proper fall to the sump at N. E. corner of the basement. . . . Lay a top or finish floor one inch thick, . . . This work is to be performed under the direction of Fred Burrage Wood, architect, for the sum of One Thousand and Twenty-five (1025.00) dollars, . . . Should you desire to increase the thickness of the base or foundation floor I will furnish the materials same as in proposed floor as above and perform the labor for the sum of One Hundred and Twenty-five (125.00) dollars per inch thickness over and above the proposed five inches.”