R. H. Baker Co. v. State

267 A.D. 712, 48 N.Y.S.2d 272, 1944 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4814
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedMay 10, 1944
DocketClaim No. 21927
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 267 A.D. 712 (R. H. Baker Co. v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
R. H. Baker Co. v. State, 267 A.D. 712, 48 N.Y.S.2d 272, 1944 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4814 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1944).

Opinions

Heffernan, J.

• Claimant appeals from a judgment of the Court of Claims dismissing its claim for damages arising out of alleged wrongful acts and interferences by the State during performance of its contract for furnishing and installing a heating system and service piping in power house and connecting tunnels at Wassaic State School.

[715]*715In November, 1927, the State began building a new institution at Wassaic through a contract with Seglin-Harrison Construction Company, Inc. (hereafter referred to as Seglin) for the erection of twenty-two buildings for inmates. Seglin’s contract designated November 1,1929, as the date for its completion.

Concurrently, in November, 1928, the State let two separate contracts, one to Morris Kantrowitz to build a power house, and about 11,000 feet of main concrete tunnels extending from the power house in a prescribed course about the building site, with branch service tunnels to the buildings then in course of erection by Seglin, and the other contract to claimant to place the heating equipment inside the power house, and the piping system inside the tunnels, which Kantrowitz was to build to house the same. Bach contract designated November 1, 1929, as the date for completion.

Kantrowitz began work at the power house site on November 19, 1928, and started tunnel excavation on April 16, 1929, but did not entirely complete the power house and tunnels until October, 1930.

Claimant commenced preparatory work in March, 1929, and actual work of installation during the week ending May 11, 1929, and completed its work by August 30, 1930.

The claims for damages, consisting principally of increased labor costs, arose from the State’s active interferences with claimant’s assembly operations, through mandatory orders compelling claimant, over its protests, to begin, and to continue, and to complete its assembly work in tunnels, when the tunnels had not been, and were not being, constructed or progressed either in the usual manner or in such way that claimant’s subsequent installations, which were to be placed inside completed tunnels, could be done by work methods customary in such industry.

Claimant was compelled to commence and continue assembling the piping system, within short, disconnected sections of tunnel, which Kantrowitz was permitted to build in different places about the site, without any known program therefor, whereby claimant could be advised, either before commencing its work, or while it was being compelled to follow up the disorderly tunnel building, concerning the plan according to which the tunnels would be constructed.

Kantrowitz was permitted to wholly abandon an initial program for continuous building of the principal main tunnel from the power house to the far corner of the site, which had been agreed upon in February, 1929, at a meeting at the site between [716]*716Kantrowitz, claimant and the State’s engineer in charge. This known program for orderly tunnel building was agreed upon about two months before any tunnel excavating work was commenced. This program was wholly abandoned by Kantrowitz in April at the outset of excavating for tunnels, up to which time claimant had only been engaged in preparatory work, arranging for the manufacture and successive deliveries of the special materials which would be required in anticipated order of tunnel building, in accordance with the predetermined program.

Before sites for claimant’s assembly work within tunnels were in such stage of construction and in such condition as to permit of assembly work therein by usual methods, claimant was compelled to proceed with its work, closely following up the tunnel building, as many short pieces of discontinuous tunnel were built about the site. These requirements were continually imposed upon claimant with notification that it would be held to its contract completion date, and that the heating system would have to be completed to be available for use in supplying temporary heat the coming winter for the buildings Seglin was constructing.

Claimant’s contract contained no reference to Seglin’s contract. Claimant had no obligation to have the heating system available for Seglin’s use for temporary heat. It had no obligation to have it completed for the State’s use for any purpose, except as arose from the date designated in its contract for completion of its work. Nevertheless, to accomplish an objective, wholly outside of claimant’s contractual obligations, the State not only compelled claimant, over its protest to start, and to continue its assembly work in structures unsuitable for customary work operations, but ultimately compelled claimant to precede the work of the general construction contractor, completing and connecting the piping and heating systems in places with temporary installations, where tunnel gaps still existed, and in an incomplete power house, to make the system usable in February, 1930, for carrying steam for temporary heat to Seglin’s buildings.

While claimant was being compelled to proceed, much general construction in tunnels and power house, which should have been completed in advance of claimant’s work, in accordance with usual good construction practices, was wholly suspended by Kantrowitz during part of the winter in both power house and tunnels, and not completed until the following spring.

[717]*717Claimant is entitled to recover its damages due to being wrongfully directed and compelled to carry on its assembly work when the structures which the State, through Kantrowitz, was to furnish to house the same, were not being so constructed, progressed and maintained that claimant’s work could be done therein in accordance with customary methods of installing such heating systems. Such damages are directly due to the State’s active interferences which precludéd claimant’s using customary economical methods in doing its work. The principle followed in American Bridge Co., Inc., v. State of New York (245 App. Div. 535, 539) and cases therein cited is applicable here.

As a condition precedent to any right to require claimant to continuously follow up the tunnel builder’s work in installing the piping system, the State owed claimant the duty of having the general construction work performed in such continuity or sequence as would allow claimant to assemble the system in completed portions thereof, by customary worldng methods, with some practicable program for its own operations.

In currently letting the two contracts with identical provisions reserving to the State the right of supervision over performance of both contracts, the State was obligated to have the required precedent construction work done in advance in some proper and orderly manner. Such duty had to be met by the State before it could rightfully require claimant to commence, and to continuously proceed with its work which was to be done in previously completed structures or parts thereof.

The State, through mandatory orders to proceed with its work, not only actively interfered with claimant’s assembly methods, but failed to afford to claimant co-ordination of precedent general construction work to which it was entitled. (Mansfield v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. Co., 102 N. Y. 205, 212; McEligot v. State, 246 App. Div. 121; Morrison & Quinn, Inc., v. State of New York, 204 App. Div. 623; Brassil v. Maryland Casualty Co., 210 N. Y. 235, 241; Wood v. Duff-Gordon, 222 N. Y. 88; Afgo Engineering Corp.

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Bluebook (online)
267 A.D. 712, 48 N.Y.S.2d 272, 1944 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4814, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/r-h-baker-co-v-state-nyappdiv-1944.