Supreme Court of Canada – Contracts-Roofing contract-Descriptions and specifications supplied by owner-Guarantee that work will remain weather tight-Damage caused by failure of material to perform intended function-Contractor’s claim for compensation for repairs-Whether responsibility for results of using material rests upon owner who prescribed it or upon contractor who applied it.
The respondents were claiming for repair work to three defective roofs on buildings which they had constructed for the appellants. The respondents argued that the defects were not their fault, as they had constructed the buildings under a contract which required them to comply with the requirements of the appellants, and the defects resulted from defects in those requirements. Reversing the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected this argument on the ground that the contract also contained a term that the respondent guaranteed that all work would remain weather tight and that all material and workmanship would be first class and without defect. In the course of giving the judgment of the court, Ritchie J at p 751 rejected the respondents’ contention, which was supported by a decision of the courts of New York, that they ‘guaranteed only that, as to the work done by it, the roof would be weather-tight in so far as the plans and specifications with which it had to comply would allow’, and at pp 753 to 754 approved a statement in the then current (8th) edition of Hudson’s Building and Engineering Contracts . . to this effect: ‘generally the express obligation to construct a work capable of carrying out the duty in question overrides the obligation to comply with the plans and specifications, and the contractor will be liable for the failure of the work notwithstanding that it is carried out in accordance with the plans and specification. Nor will he be entitled to extra payment for amending the work so that it will perform the stipulated duty.’
Judges:
Taschereau CJ and Martland, Ritchie, Hall and Spence JJ
Citations:
[1966] SCR 746, 1966 CanLII 13 (SCC), 58 DLR (2d) 595
Links:
Jurisdiction:
Canada
Cited by:
Cited – MT Hojgaard As v EON Climate and Renewables UK Robin Rigg East Ltd and Another SC 3-Aug-2017
The defendants had requested tenders for the design and construction of an offshore wind farm. The court now considered the situation arising because of inconsistencies between documents in the tender request. The successful tender was based upon an . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Contract
Updated: 06 September 2022; Ref: scu.644058