Case ID: us-ct-cl_41/html/0502-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Justice Day", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THE UTAH, NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA STAGE COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
    [39 C. Cls. R., 420; 199 U. S. R., 414.]
    
      On both parties' Appeals.
    
    The contract is similar in form to numerous mail-messenger contracts which have been before the court in previous cases. The case is new and peculiar in this: That in the city oí New York the Post-Office Department in effect established a second general post-office, and thereby duplicated ' substán-tially the claimant’s service, though without the variation in details which in previous cases have been deemed essential to constitute a service different in kind and character for which a contractor can recover additional compensation.
    The court below decides:
    1. It must be regarded as the settled rule of decision in this court that where “ ncio or additional mail-messenger or transfer service ” is not different in kind and character from that specified in the contract, the contractor can not recover; but where it is different in kind and character, he may.
    2. Where the defendants in effect duplicate the post-office system in a city, though all the details of the service remain unchanged, the additional service involved must be held to be different in kind and character, for which the contractor may recover.
    3. When the magnitude of the change is so great that it could not have been foreseen by the most prudent and experienced business man, it is service not contemplated by the contract.
    4. The term " dispatch ” is a technical one in the postal service, and means a mass of matter to be sent to a certain place at a certain time. The term “ trip ” is also technical, and refers to the wagon which will carry the whole or a part of the dispatch.
    5. Where the advertisement for proposals represented that there were 2 stations on an elevated street railroad which were each served by G2 trips when in fact there were just double that number of stations, and the business required double the alleged number of trips, the representation, beiug of a matter peculiarly within the knowledge of the Department, must be regarded as in the nature of a warranty.
    G. Where the contract required the contractor “ to take the mail from and deliver it into the post-offices, mail stations, and, cars,” the burden was on him of carrying it from his wagons up to the stations or ears of an elevated railroad.
    
      The decision of the court below is affirmed on the same grounds.
   Mr. Justice Day

delivered the opinion of the Supreme Court, November 27, 1905.