Case ID: us-ct-cl_47/html/0645-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Chief Justice White", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

ELLICOTT MACHINE CO. v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [43 C. Cls. R., 469; 44 C. Cls. R., 127; 223 U. S. R., 524.]
    
      On the defendants’ Appeal.
    
    Contractors offer to build six steel barges for $148,000. The bid is rejected. They then offer to build the barges of lighter weight and material for $101,400. This bid is the lowest of a number and is accepted. A contract is made accordingly; but before the work is begun the defendants’ officers insist that the barges be constructed of the original weight but at the reduced cost. The contractors refuse and the work is taken from them.
    The court below decides: '
    I.Where a contract provides that certain barges shall be builc “ in accordance with specifications ” “ mth such modifications as are shown ” on certain designated drawings, letters, etc.. a “ copy of which specifications, drawings, letters, <md sketch are attached hereto and form part of this contract.” all prior negotiations are merged therein.
    II.If a party to a contract is able to read a contract before he signs it, but does not, it is negligence for which he can not ask relief.
    III.Where a contract in express terms refers to drawings, letters, and a sketch which clearly and unmistakably modify the specifications, and are made a part of the contract, the Government as defendant can not escape liability by setting up that the contract was entered into in mistake of fact. The case is one of negligence.
    IV. Where the Government’s officers entered into a contract for the building of certain barges and then refused to allow the contractor to proceed with the work he is entitled to his prospective profits.
    
      On the defendants'1 motion for a new trial, the court below decides:
    I.Where a contractor’s bid for the construction of barges was clear and specific, and the only difference between the bid and the advertisement was one of weight, and it was accepted and incorporated in a contract, the defendants can not escape from the liability occasioned by their breach.
    II.There must be a meeting of minds to make a contract. But this can be shown by the contract itself where the language is plain and unambiguous and there was neither concealment nor fraud.
    III. It is well settled that where a contract is valid on its face and m> fraud or concealment has been shown, a party can not be relieved from its obligations for mistake unless the mistake was mutual. A party can not set up his own negligence and call it a mutual mistake.
    IV. A mistake as to the nature, quality, or existence of the subject-matter of a contract must be mutual before it can be said that there was no meeting of minds and, therefore, no contract.
    V. The purpose of advertising for bids is to stimulate competition. But the advertisement does not preclude modifications in the details of the specifications, eco. gr., as where the contractor proposes to build at reduced cost a vessel of the prescribed size and form, but at a reduced weight.
   The decision of the court below is reversed on the ground that the contract was void and unenforceable on account of irreconcilable conflict between essential provisions in it and the specifications.

Mr. Chief Justice White

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court February 26, 1912.