Crawford v. Harris

SEARLS, C. Action to recover $500 for work, labor and services performed by plaintiff for defendant, and for $353.35 as a balance due for money paid, laid out and expended by plaintiff for defendant, and to recover interest on said two several sums. Defendant denied his indebtedness to plaintiff, and, by way of cross-complaint, set out that plaintiff was indebted to him in the sum of $1,000, for so much money by him (the said plaintiff) had and received to and for the use of defendant, and, in a separate count, [404]claimed a like sum of $1,000 on an account stated; and, in a third count, defendant claimed damages in the sum of $500 for the violation by plaintiff of a contract to superintend the erection and construction of additions and alterations to two certain buildings owned by defendant, and demanding judgment against plaintiff for $2,500. The cause was tried by a jury, and a general verdict returned in favor of plaintiff for $916.46, for which sum judgment was entered. The appeal is from such judgment and from an order denying a motion on behalf of defendant for a new trial.

Defendant was the owner of two buildings at the corner of Grove street and Van Ness avenue, in the city and county of San Francisco, which he desired to have remodeled, in part rebuilt, and converted into a single structure. About the month of June, 1892, as the result of sundry interviews on the subject, he entered into a verbal contract with the plaintiff, by the terms of which the latter agreed to furnish, and did furnish, plans, and was to superintend the alterations, construction, etc., all for $500. Plaintiff took charge of the work, had the necessary grading done, moved the buildings as required by the necessities of the ease, employed a foreman, ordered materials, employed, by himself or through the foreman, all needed mechanics and laborers, usually paying the mechanics, etc., and calling upon the defendant for money to reimburse himself. The work progressed until, say, the month of November, when plaintiff called upon defendant for some $309.10 to reimburse himself for moneys alleged to have been expended in the payment of mechanics, which defendant refused to pay, averring that the bills were unjust, fraudulent, etc. Plaintiff left the building the last of November or first of December, 1892, at which time he claims it was substantially completed, except in some minor particulars not requiring his attention. There was a sharp conflict in the evidence; not only upon this last point, but also upon the general conduct of the business, and reasonableness of the expenditures incurred by plaintiff on behalf of defendant. The jury, by a general verdict in favor of plaintiff, has passed upon all the issues involved; and as there was testimony which, if believed, was sufficient to support such verdict, it can sub-serve no useful purpose to examine such evidence in detail, where the inevitable conclusion must be that, in the face of