C. W. Hunt Co. v. Boston Elevated Railway Co.

85 N.E. 446, 199 Mass. 220, 1908 Mass. LEXIS 809
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court·Decided June 9, 1908·Published·Cited by 53 cases

Opinion

Loring, J.

1. We are of opinion that the auditor was right in proceeding on the footing that the Hunt Company was entitled to recover if “ the towers did conform to the contract and specifications, as modified by the parties in March, 1903, and that if they were not satisfactory to the vice-president of the railway company they ought to have satisfied a reasonable man.”

This is not a contract “ into which considerations of taste or personal preference may enter,” as was said by Knowlton, C. J., in Noyes v. Eastern Accident Association, 190 Mass. 171, 172. That is to say, it is not a case within McCarren v. McNulty, 7 Gray, 139; Brown v. Foster, 113 Mass. 136; White v. Randall, 153 Mass. 394; Webber v. Cambridgeport Savings Bank, 186 Mass. 314, 315. The case at bar is for work of a business character and comes within Hawkins v. Graham, 149 Mass. 284, if as matter of construction it was to be done to the satisfaction of the defendant and not to that of a third person as arbitrator.

The provision of the contract is: The contractor agrees that all material furnished and work done hereunder shall be subject to acceptance by the railway company and its vice president; that all apparatus furnished and work done shall be subject at all times to the inspection of said vice president or his authorized agents, and that any work performed or material furnished which may be deemed by said vice president to be not in accordance with the terms of this contract and accompanying specifications shall be immediately replaced by the contractor at its own expense.” There are also these provisions in the specifications : “ The work shall be executed under the direction and supervision of the vice-president of the Boston Elevated Railway Company or his authorized representative. . . . The vice-president of the Boston Elevated Railway Company, without relieving the contractor from any responsibility therein, reserves the right to direct the manner and order in which the work shall be executed.”

Had Mr. Sergeant been a third person and not an officer of the defendant corporation, the provisions of the specifications would have been enough to make him a quasi arbitrator within the rule applied in Atkins v. Barnstable, 97 Mass. 428; Palmer v. Clark, 106 Mass. 373; Flint v. Gibson, 106 Mass. 391; [228] Robbins v. Clark, 129 Mass. 145; National Contracting Co. v. Commonwealth, 183 Mass. 89; Norcross v. Wyman, 187 Mass. 25.

But Mr. Sergeant represented the railway company in this transaction, and was not a third person. That being so, the provision that the work was to be done “ subject to acceptance by the railway company and its vice president ” would have brought this case within Hawkins v. Graham without a doubt had that been the only provision of the contract on this point. In such a case Mr. Sergeant in accepting or not accepting the work would have acted for and represented the railway company, and would not have been a third person acting as arbitrator.

Although, as we have said, the provisions in the specifications look the other way, we are of opinion on the whole that Mr. Sergeant must he taken to have been the representative of the defendant and not a third person in this matter. This conclusion is enforced by the fact that all the correspondence set forth in the report which took place under the contract was carried on by Mr. Sergeant in behalf of the railway company.

2. The railway company urges that the auditor is wrong in his conclusion from the correspondence set out in the report “that if the changes specified were made, and if they accomplished the results which they might fairly be expected. to accomplish, the railway company would be satisfied with the towers and would accept them.”

This contention of the railway company is based on these words in the closing letter of April 3: “We have no desire whatever to interrupt the work, but we waive none of our rights under the contract to reject any or all of it if it proves unsatisfactory when completed.” This statement is to be taken in connection with what went before.

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C. W. Hunt Co. v. Boston Elevated Railway Co., 85 N.E. 446, 199 Mass. 220, 1908 Mass. LEXIS 809 (Mass. 1908).

85 N.E. 446 (C. W. Hunt Co. v. Boston Elevated Railway Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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