swarb.co.uk - law index
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Construction - From: 1900 To: 1929
This page lists 6 cases, and was prepared on 20 May 2019.
Wolverhampton Corporation v Emmons [1901] 1 QB 515
1901
Romer LJ
Land, Construction
The court granted an order for specific performance of a covenant in a building contract. Romer LJ said that the first condition for specific enforcement of a building contract was that "the particulars of the work are so far definitely ascertained that the court can sufficiently see what is the exact nature of the work of which it is asked to order the performance".
1 Citers
Steel v Young; SCS 11-Jan-1907 - [1907] ScotCS CSIH - 4; 1907 SC 360; [1907] SLR 44 - 291
Charles J Wills and Others v The Central Railway Company of Canada [1914] UKPC 79
4 Aug 1914
PC
Construction
Quebec
[ Bailii ]
Boyd and Forrest v Glasgow and South-Western Railway Co 1915 SC (HL) 20; [1915] UKHL 3; [1915] AC 526; 1915 1 SLT 114
11 Jan 1915
HL
Earl Loreburn
Construction, Scotland
The issuing of an instruction was not a condition precedent to entitlement to payment in a construction contract.
1 Cites
1 Citers
[ Bailii ]
Metropolitan Water Board v Dick Kerr and Co Ltd [1917] UKHL 2; [1918] AC 119; [1917] UKHL 537; 55 SLR 537
26 Nov 1917
HL
Lord Finlay LC, Lord Dunedin
Contract, Construction
In July 1914 the appellants contracted with the respondents, a firm of contractors, for the construction of a reservoir which was to take six years to build. The work was started, but in February 1916 the Minister of Munitions ordered it to cease and requisitioned part of the plant. Work was accordingly stopped, but the appellants claimed that the contract subsisted, and this action was brought to determine the question. Held that the interruption was of such a character and duration as fundamentally to change the conditions of the contract, and could not have been in the contemplation of the parties to the contract when it was made. Accordingly the contract had ceased to be operative.
Upheld
1 Cites
1 Citers
[ Bailii ] - [ Bailii ]
Jacob and Youngs Inc v Kent (1921) 230 NY 239
1921
Cardoza J
Damages, Construction, International
Court of Appeals of New York. A building contract specified that the plumbing should use a particular type of piping. In fact the builder used a different type of piping. Cardozo J. stated: "In the circumstances of this case, we think the measure of the allowance is not the cost of replacement, which would be great, but the difference in value, which would be either nominal or nothing . . It is true that in most cases the cost of replacement is the measure . . The owner is entitled to the money which will permit him to complete, unless the cost of completion is grossly and unfairly out of proportion to the good to be obtained. When that is true, the measure is the difference in value. Specifications call, let us say, for a foundation built of granite quarried in Vermont. On the completion of the building, the owner learns that through the blunder of a subcontractor part of the foundation has been built of granite of the same quality quarried in New Hampshire. The measure of allowance is not the cost of reconstruction. "There may be omissions of that which could not afterwards be supplied exactly as called for by the contract without taking down the building to its foundations, and at the same time the omission may not affect the value of the building for use or otherwise, except so slightly as to be hardly appreciable."
1 Citers
