Case ID: us-ct-cl_51/html/0494-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Holmes", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

MARYLAND DREDGING AND CONTRACTING COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [47 O. Cls. R., 557; 49 C. Cls. R., 710; 241 U. S. R., 184.]
    
      On the plaintiffs appeal.
    
    The contract is in the usual form of engineer’s contracts; time is of the essence of the contract; the damages are agreed upon and liquidated in advance; the cost of inspection during the period of delay is to be paid by the contractor with the usual proviso that additional time may be allowed if the delay be caused by strikes, epidemics, quarantine restrictions, or abnormal force or violence of the elements. But there is a provision in the specifications which states that “ the time allowed in these specifications ” is considered sufficient “ unless extraordinary and unforeseeable conditions supervene.” In the prosecution of the work the contractor encounters submerged roots, branches, and timber, and contends that they were “ extraordinary and unforeseeable conditions.”
    
    This suit was heard on defendants’ demurrer to original petition and reported in 47 C. Cls. R., 557; the demurrer was sustained and petition dismissed. No opinion by the court below was rendered on an amended petition which was thereafter filed, and the court again sustained defendants’ demurrer and dismissed the amended petition. On appeal the judgment was affirmed and the Supreme Court decided;
    The provision in the contract that the time was sufficient unless extraordinary conditions should supervene does not amount to a promise for extension if such conditions do supervene.
    The extent of promise for an extension under the contract was confined to what the engineer in charge would grant with the sanction of the chief engineer; nor was the chief engineer bound, in the absence of fraud, to give his sanction to a recommendation of the engineer in charge for an extension.
    For extraordinary conditions to supervene in such a case they must come into being after commencement of the work, and not merely be thereafter discovered to have existed and still to exist.
    The provision in the contract for liquidation of damages at $20 per day contains no element of deception or exorbitance, and the contractor can not escape the terms agreed upon.
   Mr. Justice Holmes

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court May 8, 1916.