Case ID: ny_226/html/0670-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

John E. Donovan, Appellant, v. The City of New York, Respondent.
    
      Donovan v. City of New York, 179 App. Div. 909, affirmed.
    (Argued April 25, 1919;
    decided May 20, 1919.)
    Appeal, by permission, from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the second judicial department, entered July 6, 1917, unanimously affirming a judgment in favor of defendant. entered upon a dismissal of the complaint by the court at a Trial Term in an action to recover for alleged breach of contract. Plaintiff entered into a contract with defendant to grade Lyman avenue in the borough of Richmond. He was to be paid seventy-five cents a cubic yard for excavating and a similar amount for filling. The line of the street crossed a bog or swamp and plaintiff alleged that he was compelled to dump 6,688 cubic yards of filling in order to obtain a solid foundation for the street. He sought in this action to recover the contract price for the amount of filling and for the amount of bog displaced thereby. The answer, besides putting in issue the material allegations of the complaint, plead as affirmative defenses: (1) Payment; (2) the finality and conclusiveness of the final certificate and the effect of the general release, and (3) that' the contract, if given the construction sought to be placed upon it by the plaintiff, is ultra vires and void.
    
      John C. Wait and Howard G. Wilson for appellant.
    
      William P. Burr, Corporation Counsel (Terence Farley, William E. C. Mayer and John F. Collins of counsel), for respondent.
   Judgment affirmed, with costs; no opinion.

Concur: His cock, Ch. J., Collin, Cuddeback, Cardozo, Pound, Crane and Andrews, JJ.