Case ID: nys_68/html/0820-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "O’GORMAN, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

VOGEL v. FRIEDMAN et al.
    (Supreme. Court, Appellate Term.
    February 25, 1901.)
    Contracts—Substantial Compliance—Sufficiency—Recovery.
    In an action on a building contract, the contractor was not precluded from recovering thereon by his failure to perform the contract literally, where a substantial compliance with the provisions had been made.
    Appeal from municipal court, borough of Manhattan, Fourth district.
    Action by George Vogel against Samuel Friedman and another. From a judgment in favor of defendants, plaintiff appeals.
    Reversed.
    Argued before ANDREWS, P. J., and O’GORMAN and BLANCHARD, JJ.
    Edward D. Newman, .for appellant.
    Louis Steckler, for respondents.
   O’GORMAN, J.

The omissions from the contract were requested by the defendants’ architect with the defendants’ knowledge, and, as the case stood when the plaintiff rested, the only question for determination was what reasonable deduction should be made therefor from the contract price. Attention is called to one or two slight omissions not authorized by the architect, but as to these the plaintiff very properly invokes the rule that the right to enforce a contract will not be defeated by reason of inadvertent, trifling, and unimportant omissions. A literal compliance as to all details is not necessary. A substantial performance will support a recovery, and in such a case an allowance should be made to the defendants to cover any slight damage they may have suffered by reason of the plaintiff’s failure to strictly perform the contract in every detail. Desmond-Dunne Co. v. Friedman-Doscher Co., 162 N. Y. 488, 56 N. E. 995. It was, therefore, error to dismiss the complaint, and the judgment must be reversed.

Judgment reversed and new trial ordered, with costs to appellant to abide the event. All concur.