Coatesville Contractors & Engineers, Inc. v. Borough of Ridley Park

488 A.2d 353, 339 Pa. Super. 147, 1984 Pa. Super. LEXIS 6880
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedDecember 5, 1984
DocketNo. 01709
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 488 A.2d 353 (Coatesville Contractors & Engineers, Inc. v. Borough of Ridley Park) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Coatesville Contractors & Engineers, Inc. v. Borough of Ridley Park, 488 A.2d 353, 339 Pa. Super. 147, 1984 Pa. Super. LEXIS 6880 (Pa. Ct. App. 1984).

Opinion

OLSZEWSKI, Judge:

This is an appeal from a lower court’s order dismissing both a motion to remove a compulsory non-suit and a motion for a new trial.1

[150]*150Appellants contend that the trial judge erred in granting appellee’s motion for compulsory non-suit. Appellants claim that they produced sufficient evidence at trial to invalidate exculpatory language in the contract, thereby overcoming the appellee’s motion for compulsory non-suit.

In reviewing the grant of a compulsory non-suit, the appellant must be given the benefit of every fact and reasonable inference arising from the evidence and all conflicts must be resolved in the appellant’s favor. McNally v. Liebowitz, 498 Pa. 163, 170, 445 A.2d 716, 719 (1982). The testimony from below, read in the light most favorable to the appellant reveals the following.

In the Summer of 1977, the appellee, Borough of Ridley Park (“Ridley Park”), advertised for bids from contractors for the excavation of Ridley Park Lake. Bid documents were made available to potential bidders. These documents included Specifications for Removal of Silt and Debris from Ridley Park Lake. (R. 234a).2 A clause contained in these specifications stated:

The lake has been drained and shall remain in the draw-down condition until all silt debris removal work has been completed. The contractor shall remove silt and debris from areas as herein and shown on the plan.

Prior to bidding on the job, John Fallon, operating engineer for the appellants Coatesville Contractors and Engineers, Inc. (“Coatesville”), read all the bid documents and made an independent site inspection. (R. 51a, 52a). In the fall of 1977, Ridley Park awarded the job to Coatesville. The bid documents were incorporated into the final contract between the parties. See Appendix I. Testimony further revealed that at no time did Mr. Fallon or any other Coatesville official ever inquire as to what the phrase “drawdown” [151]*151condition meant or how Ridley Park intended to keep the lake in such a condition. (R. 108a, 109a, 117a). In November of 1977, Mr. Fallon made a second site inspection. He testified at trial that on both occasions he found the site to consist of a lake bed with a small stream running through it. (R. 52a-58a).

In March of 1978, Ridley Park noticed Coatesville to commence work. Mr. Fallon and Mr. Reid, a Coatesville on-site supervisor, both testified that when Coatesville arrived at the site, the lake was full of water. (R. 63a, 177a, 178a). The situation was brought to the attention of Mr. Damon, engineer for the Borough. (R. 63a). Yet despite the condition of the lake, Coatesville commenced work on the project and in fact completed 85% of the job by May of 1978. In August of 1978 Coatesville left the work site over a dispute whether the job had been completed to specifications. After negotiations, Coatesville returned to the site in 1979, completed certain work and received final payment on the contract.

Coatesville later brought an action against Ridley Park seeking to recover additional compensation over and above the contract price which it alleged was caused by Ridley Park’s failure to keep the lake in a “drawdown” condition. At trial, Mr. Fallon testified that he read and understood the bid documents including the following exculpatory provisions:

Article II, Paragraph 3.
The contractor shall not be entitled to demand or receive payments for any work as extra work, unless ordered in writing by the committee to do the same as such, and at a price fixed by them previous to its commencement. Article III, Paragraph 2.
The contractor agrees that he has satisfied himself by his own investigation and research regarding all of the conditions affecting the work to be done and labor and material needed, and that his conclusion to execute this contract is based on such investigation and research, and not on the estimate of the quantities or other information pre[152]*152pared by the engineer and that he will make no claim against the municipality because of any of the estimate tests or representations of any kind affecting the work made by any agent of the municipality may prove to be in any respect erroneous.
Article TV, Paragraph 2.
The contractor shall not be entitled to any claims for damages from any hinderance or delay from any cause whatever in the progress of the work, or any portion thereof, but when such hinderance or delay results from causes entirely beyond the control of the contractor, said hinderance or delay, excepting such as may from time to time result from ordinary and not unusual weather conditions for the season of the year when he is at work may entitle the contractor to such an extension of time for completing the contract as may be determined by the committee, provided the contractor shall have given notice in writing of the cause of detention.
Article V, Paragraph 4
All loss or damages arising out of the nature of the work to be done under the contract, or from any unforeseen obstructions or difficulties which may be encountered in the prosecution of the same, or from the action of the elements, or from encumbrances on the line of work, shall be sustained by the contractor.

R. 122a, 123a, 126a.

Following Coatesville’s presentation of its case, the trial court granted Ridley Park’s motion for compulsory non-suit. This appeal followed the lower court’s refusal to remove the compulsory non-suit.

Appellants contend that the compulsory non-suit should not have been granted because sufficient evidence had been presented at trial to overcome the exculpatory contractual language which the lower court claimed barred Coatesville’s recovery. The law regarding compulsory non-suits is clear. A compulsory non-suit is warranted only in clear cases where the facts and circumstances have as the only conclusion the absence of liability. McNally v. Lie[153]*153bowitz, supra. Similarly, a non-suit is proper when facts constituting an affirmative defense are so established by uncontradicted testimony in the plaintiffs case that any reasonable possibility of an inference to the contrary is excluded. Plummer v. Wesner, 217 Pa.Super. 24, 268 A.2d 144, 145 (1970). Therefore, in the instant case, Coatesville must have shown by a preponderance of the evidence that it was not bound by the contract’s exculpatory language. Because if, as a matter of law, there was insufficient evidence to prove this, then Coatesville was bound by the contractual language and the non-suit was properly granted.

Pennsylvania courts have frequently held that exculpatory provisions will not work as a defense where there has been an affirmative or positive interference by a party or a failure to act in some essential matter necessary to the prosecution of the work. Gasparini Excavating Co. v. Pa. Turnpike Commission, 409 Pa. 465, 187 A.2d 157 (1963), Commonwealth Department of Highways v.

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Related

Coatesville Contractors & Engineers, Inc. v. Borough of Ridley Park
506 A.2d 862 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1986)

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Bluebook (online)
488 A.2d 353, 339 Pa. Super. 147, 1984 Pa. Super. LEXIS 6880, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/coatesville-contractors-engineers-inc-v-borough-of-ridley-park-pasuperct-1984.