CONTRACTOR'S APPEAL.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2742, 7 September 1923, Page 2

CONTRACTOR'S APPEAL.

CASE DISMISSED. Mr Justice Hosking gave reserved judgment in the Palmerston North Court yesterday in the appeal case between Thomas Collins, appellant, (Mr Graham) and the Mayor, councillors and burgesses ©f the Borough of Feilding, respondents, (Mr Elliott), heard earlier in the sitting. His Honour stated that he thought the appeal should be dismissed. The question whether the appellant was entitled to recover for the filling depended on the construction of the contract. It was a contract for a lump sum, and what had to be done for that lump sum was "to execute, furnish and perform all works, supplies, services and things described in the specification," and in the plans therein referred to. flls Honour agreed with the Magistrate in the conclusion which he arrived at, that the contractor, as part of the works which by the contract he undertook to do, assumed the obligation of filling the space beyond the limits of the wing walls of the bridges and the existing ground level, although the necessity for such filling was not indicated on the plans. His Honour thought that the manner :n which the Magutrate had shown this to bo the true interpretation of the contract was most convincing, and he would not embark upon any independent statement of the considerations which lead to that result. His Honour stated, however, that he might add that this was not the first occasion in which an unwary contractor had found himself involved in obligations beyond his anticipation. The appellant's grievance was that pla.ns did not indicate that filling should be done. The answer was that the specification did so, and that if the plans did not afford sufficient data for calculating the quantity of the filling, the onus was on the intending tenderer to ascertain for himself, either by enquiry of the engineer, or by inspection of the ground. The conditions of contract warned tenderers that the plans may be Insufficient, for they authorised the engineer to make good any deficiency (herein. The plans, therefore, could not be taken as warranting that they disclosed the whole of the work to be done. They must be construed together with the specifications, and bo construing them, they were not inconsistent with the specifications, for the plans did not contain any representation that the filling for levelling purposes was not to go beyond the wing walls. The appeal was dismissed with costs £5 6/.