Farren v. Hobbs

LANGDON, J.

This is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment against her, in her capacity as executrix of the estate of A. L. Hobbs, deceased, for $4,286.95, in an action upon two assigned claims. One of these claims was for boring a well and the other for the purchase price of a pump for the well.

The appellant, while approaching the matter from many directions, in substance, presents by her brief a determined attack upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain findings regarding the making of the contract for the pump and the performance of either the contract for the pump or for the boring of the well by the assignors of plaintiff.

Defendant’s decedent, A. L. Hobbs, was the owner of a piece of land in Colusa County, part of which he had planted with trees and vines. In March, 1921, he made a contract with I. E. Florey, a well driller, under which Florey was to bore a 12-inch well upon this land so that a 9-stage, 90-foot pump of Western Well Works manufacture could be installed satisfactorily. The depth of the well was to be determined by Hobbs, who agreed to pay Florey seventy-five per cent of the money due him after the first one hundred feet had been drilled and seventy-five per cent of the amount due him after each additional fifty feet had been drilled and the balance in full when pump “is satisfactorily installed and operated.” Florey also agreed to furnish “one twelve-inch number nine State Western Well Works Vertical Turbine pump with sufficient line shaft, line shaft couplings, discharge columns, oil conduits, etc. to place the bowls of the pump approximately 90 feet below the surface of the ground. . . . Pump to be delivered within thirty days.” The price of the pump was to be $2,070 installed complete, less two and one-half per cent.

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There is no dispute about the execution of the foregoing contract. It was in writing and signed by the parties. After signing this contract, Florey contracted with the Western Well Works of San Jose for a pump in accordance with the specifications of his contract with Hobbs. He then proceeded to bore the well. He bored it twelve inches in diameter to a depth of 370 feet and then engaged another well digger, Steele, to carry it down at a diameter of ten inches, this reduction of diameter being decided upon by Hobbs and the drillers because there was danger of a collapse in the twelve-inch casing. Steele carried the well down to 494 feet, according to his testimony, and at this point Hobbs, after consultation with the drillers, decided there might be water enough to suit his needs and ordered Steele to make the perforations to let the water into the well. Steele did so and cleaned the well of sand and gravel to the bottom. Presumably the well was now ready for the pump. At this point Hobbs measured the depth of the well and, according to his testimony and that of the man who assisted him, it measured only 472 feet in depth. The prior measurement of Florey, according to his testimony, had disclosed a greater depth by about twenty feet. There is some uncertainty about the record as to how this occurred-—perhaps through a mistake of one or the other of the parties, or perhaps through the filling in of sand and gravel; but, however it occurred, the discrepancy caused a dispute over the amount due for boring the well. Because of this dispute Florey refused to install the pump.