Case Name: THE WILLIAM CRAMP AND SONS SHIP AND ENGINE BUILDING COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES
Court: United States Court of Claims
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1911-05-29
Citations: 46 Ct. Cl. 521
Docket Number: No. 20861
Parties: THE WILLIAM CRAMP AND SONS SHIP AND ENGINE BUILDING COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
Judges: 
Reporter: United States Court of Claims Reports
Volume: 46
Pages: 521–558

Head Matter:
THE WILLIAM CRAMP AND SONS SHIP AND ENGINE BUILDING COMPANY v. THE UNITED STATES.
[No. 20861.
Decided May 29, 1911.]
On the claimant's Motion.
The contract in this case for the battleship Massachusetts is identical with that between the same parties for the construction of the Indiana. There this court held that the release “ of all claims of any 1and, or description under or by virtue of this contract,” not being supported by a new consideration, did not extend to breaches of the defendants in relation to work which was not under the contract. (41 O. Cls. R., 164.) The Supreme Court ascribed greater significance to the term “ by virtue of," and held that “ strictly speaking they toere not claims wider the contract but were clearly claims by virtue of the contract,” and that the release extended to them, and was intended by the contract to extend to them, so that nothing should be “ left open and unsettled."
I.Whether at the time of the execution of the contract it was or was not within the intent of the parties that the final release to be given by he contractors before final payment should embrace “ all claims of any kind or description under or by virtue of this contract ” was the question determined by the Supreme Court in the case of the Indiana (41 C. Cls. R., 164; 206 U. S. R., 118) ; and as this case is between the same parties this court is not at liberty to give a different construction to the language used.
II.This decision of the Supreme Court held that the release given by the contractors at the time of payment extended to claims of an unliquidated character, though the Secretary of the Navy, who exacted the release, was himself without authority to settle such claims.
III.While the contracts in the three cases of the Indiana, the Alabama and this, the Massachusetts, are identical, the releases .are not. That of the Alabama (43 C. Cls. R., 202, 210) provides “ that nothing herein shall operate as a waiver of this company's right to sue for damages incurred or losses sustained ” “ lohich were occasioned by delays or defaults on the part of the United States."
IV.The fact that a contractor executed under the pressure of impending solvency, caused by the other party withholding funds due under the contract, is not proof that he executed it in mistake of fact; and the mistake of one party can not take the place of the mutual mistake of both. The reformation of a contract by a court is not to make a new contract, hut to give effect to the original intent of both parties.
V.Since the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of the Alabama (supra) it must be held that the contractors in this case could have protected themselves at the time of signing the final release by excepting therefrom their claims for unliquidated damages, notwithstanding the decision in the case of the Indiana that it was intended by the contract that a release should he given at the time of final settlement by which nothing should be “ left open and unsettled."
VI. It may be laid down as an established rule that where there is no mixed question of law and fact, and no fraud, undue influence or deceit, a court of equity will not interpose to reform a contract.
VII. Where the sole ground for the reformation of a final release is the misconception of the party who gave it as to his legal rights under the contract to which the release relates his mistake is one of law.
The Reporters’ statement of the case:
The following are the facts of the case as found by the court:
I. The claimant herein is a corporation incorporated under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and carries on the business of ship and engine building, with its yards and plant and works located in the city of Philadelphia, in said State.
II. On November 19,1890, the claimant entered into a contract with the United States, through their Secretary of the Navy, whereby, in consideration of the sum of $3,063,000, to be paid as provided in said contract, it agreed to construct and complete within three years from said date, as in said contract provided, a seagoing coast-line battleship, designated as “No. 2” and subsequently named the Massachusetts, all in accordance with the specifications attached to and made a part of said contract, which contract, marked “ Exhibit W. C. & S. No. 1,” is annexed to and made a part of the petition herein.
III. Immediately after the making of said contract the claimant arranged and systematized a working programme for the construction of said vessel by organizing its working force so as to cooperate with each other in harmony on coordinate work and to secure economy in the construction of the vessel within the contract time and to escape the penalties imposed thereby for delays. The claimant would have completed the vessel within the contract period if it had not been fon the failure of the United States to furnish materials within the time and in the order to properly carry on the work which by the terms of the contract they had agreed to furnish.
By reason of tbe failure of the defendants to furnish the materials, which, by the third clause of the contract, they had agreed to furnish within the time and in the order as aforesaid, the completion of the vessel was delayed for 2 years 6 months and 9 days beyond the contract period.
The armor to be furnished in accordance with said clause of the contract was obtained by the defendants from other contractors, who, without any fault on the part of the claimant, failed to complete the manufacture thereof in time for the defendants to deliver the same to the claimants as they had agreed to do.
IY. On May 29, 1896, and after the completion and delivery of the vessel at the time hereinafter stated, the Secretary of the Navy decided that the cause of delay for the period of 2 years 6 months and 9 days in the completion of the vessel was due to the failure of the United States to furnish the claimant the materials contracted to be furnished by them within the time and in the order to properly carry on work, and for that reason the time within which to complete the vessel, and thereby release the claimant from the penalties provided for in the ninth clause of the contract, was on said date extended by the Secretary of the Navy a corresponding length of time, to wit, to May 29, 1896, on which latter date the vessel so contracted for was completed and delivered.
V. On October 5, 1894, before the Secretary of the Navy had finally decided the cause of delay as aforesaid and before there had been a preliminary or conditional acceptance of the vessel, under article 10 of the contract as authorized by article 3 thereof, owing to the failure of the defendants to furnish, in the order required, the material which they had agreed to furnish and the refusal of said Secretary to permit such trial thereunder, the contract was modified (which modification is made part of the petition herein and marked “ Exhibit W. C. & S. No. 2 ”), by the terms of which modification the defendants agreed to pay the claimant a portion of the reservations of installments, which, under the original contract, were not payable, as therein set forth, until after a preliminary or conditional acceptance of the vessel. The amount of the reservations so earned by the claimant up to that time which had been withheld by the Government by reason of its delay aforesaid, amounting to $234,830, was paid, the claimant giving bond with security against any loss to the defendants on account of such payment, but no demand for any refund was ever made upon it. At the time and prior to the execution of the modification of said contract the claimant, partly by reason of the delays of the Government and its refusal as aforesaid and partly by reason of unprofitable contracts with other parties for merchant vessels, was embarrassed financially, and was unable to procure money elsewhere; and in consideration of the payment being made as aforesaid the claimant, as recited in said modification, released the defendants “ from all and every claim for loss or damage hitherto sustained by reason of any failure on the part of the defendants ” to comply with said contract “ or on account of any delay hitherto occasioned by them.”
To the delays of the Government, the signing of the modification of the contract, and the release as aforesaid the claimant verbally objected.
Thereafter, on February 1, 1896, under similar circumstances of financial embarrassment, as aforesaid, and in order to relieve the claimant financially from such embarrassment a further modification of the contract, as set forth in the petition as “ Exhibit W. C. & S. No. 3,” was entered into between the parties, the claimant, as before, executing a bond with security against any loss to the defendants,, the payments, amounting to $150,000, being made, as therein stated, in consideration of a like release “ from all and every claim for loss or damage hitherto sustained by reason of any failure on the part of the defendants ” to comply with said contract “ or on account of any delay hitherto occasioned by them.” No demand was ever made upon the claimant for any refund of the amount so paid it under said agreement.
To the delays of the Government, the signing of the modification of the contract, and the release as aforesaid the claimant verbally objected.
YI. On November 23, 1896, after the completion and delivery of the vessel in accordance with the sixth paragraph
of the nineteenth clause of the contract, the balance of the amount due thereunder, but withheld in accordance therewith until the final acceptance of the vessel, was paid to the claimant, and the same was accepted and a release approved by the Secretary of the Navy was entered into by it without any written protest, in the terms following:
“Whereas by the eleventh clause of the contract, dated November 18, 1890, by and between the William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, a corporation created under the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and doing business at Philadelphia, in said State, represented by the president of said corporation, party of the first part, and the United States, represented by the Secretary of the Navy, party of the second part, for the construction of a coast-line battleship of about 10,000 tons displacement, which for the purposes of said contract is designated and known as coastline battleship No. 2, it is agreed that a special reserve of sixty thousand dollars ($60,000) shall be held until the vessel has been finally tried, provided that such final trial shall take place within five months from and after the date of the preliminary acceptance of the vessel; and
Whereas by of said contract it is further provided that when all the conditions, covenants, and provisions of said contract shall have been performed and fulfilled by and on the part of the party of the first part, said party of the first part shall be entitled, within ten days after the filing and acceptance of its claim, to receive the said special reserve, or so much thereof as it may be entitled to, on the execution of a final release to the United States, in such form as shall be approved by the Secretary of the Navy, of all claims of any kind or description under or by virtue of said contract; and
“ Whereas the final was on the 24th day of October, 1896; and
Whereas all said contract have been performed and fulfilled by and on the part of the party of the first part;
sum of $57,536.60, being the balance of the aforesaid special reserve to which the party of the first part is entitled, being to me in hand paid by the United States, represented by the Secretary of the Navy, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, the William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, represented by me, Charles H. Cramp, president of said corporation, does hereby, for itself and _ its successors and assigns and its legal representatives, remise, pelease, and forever discharge the United States of and from all and all manner of debts, dues, sum and sums of money, accounts, reckonings, claims, and demands whatsoever, in law or in equity, for or by reason of or on account of the construction of said vessel under the contract aforesaid.
“ In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of the William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company this 23d day of November, A. D. 1896.
“ The Wm. Champ & SoNS Ship AND
“ EkgiNE Building Company,
“ [seal.] “ Chas. H. Champ, President.
“Attest:
“Theodohe W. Champ,
“Assistant Secretary.”
VII. At the time, of the payment of said balance and the execution of the papers set forth in Finding VI the claim set out in the petition had been submitted to the Secretary of the Navy under the act of June'lO, 1896 (29 Stat. L., 361, 374), for investigation and report on the claims of contractors for the construction of hulls and machinery of vessels for the United States subsequent to January 1, 1891, and was at that time under examination by him, which examination resulted, on December 9, 1896, in a report by the Secretary to Congress in which the following language occurs:
“I have considered carefully the nature of these claims and the circumstances out of which they arose, and while not attempting to pass on the merits of the same or to determine the amount, if any, that should be allowed on account of the matters mentioned, the fact exists that there was delay in the completion of the contracts beyond the time prescribed therein, and that such delay was, in some measure at least, due to failure on the part of the Government to obtain and furnish the contractors the armor for the vessels as required, and in my judgment the interests of justice demand that they shoidd be referred to the Court of Claims, which can consider these matters with more deliberation and care than could be devoted to them by the committees of the two Houses of Congress.”
In said report the attention of Congress was called to tbe two memoranda of agreements and releases referred to in Finding Y, and in relation to which he said:
“ It will be observed that the contractors claim relief from the binding force of these agreements on the ground that the same were entered into by them under duress.”
No reference was made in said report to the final release theretofore executed by the claimant company under the sixth clause of the nineteenth paragraph of the contract.' (See H. Ex. Doc. No. 69, 54th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1, 2.)
VIII. After the expiration of the contract period and during the 2 years 6 months and 9 days that the vessel was delayed in completion, as hereinbefore found, the reasonable value of the use of the claimant’s yard, machinery, and tools, and for superintendence in the construction of the vessel, including the general upkeep of the yard chargeable to the Massachusetts was $8,000 per month, or $90,900 for the 2 years 6 months and 9 days’ delay.
The proportion of said expense chargeable to the Massachusetts from October 5,1894, the date of the first release set forth in Finding Y, being for 1 year 7 months and 24 days, was $59,400, and from February 1, 1896, the date of the second release set forth in said Finding V, being for 8 months and 29 days, was $11,900.
IX. For the proper care and protection of the vessel during the 2 years 6 months and 9 days’ delay, including expenses of cleaning the bottom, furnishing material, and painting, temporary awnings and tents over caps left for the introduction of turrets, additional scaling to remove rust before painting, electric lighting, keeping up steam to prevent freezing of valves, wetting down decks, going over machinery, and keeping vessel free from snow, dust, ice, and débris, the reasonable cost was $60,600.
The proportion of said expense for the period from October 5, 1894, the date of the first release set forth in Finding V, being for 1 year 7 months and 24 days, was $39,600, and from February 1, 1896, the date of the second release set forth in said Finding V, being for 3 months and 29 days, was $7,933.33.
X. The customary rate of wharfage of merchant vessels at the port of Philadelphia during the time the Massachusetts was being constructed was 1 per cent net registered ton, and upon that basis, if allowed, the wharfage on the Massachusetts, with a net tonnage which we find was 3,203.58, during said 2 years 6 months and 9 days’ delay was $32 a day, or $29,408.
The proportion of expense during the period from October 5, 1894, the date of the first release set forth in Finding Y, being for 1 year 7 months and 24 days, was $19,168, inclusive of the dredging of the basin or bed in which to accommodate the vessel, and from February 1, 1896, the date of the second release set forth in said Finding Y, being for 3 months and 29 days, was $3,808.
The claimant also incurred an expense of $6,011 for tug service in removal of the vessel from time to time. Such expense is not shown to have been necessary to the construction of the vessel during the period of delay. It appears to have been for the benefit and convenience of the claimant.
XI. During the 2 years 6 months and 9 days’ delay the claimant was required to and did keep the vessel insured for the benefit and protection of the United States, and the reasonable cost thereof aggregated during said period the sum of $34,316.27.
The proportionate expense for the period from October 5, 1894, the date of the first release set forth in Finding Y, being for 1 year 7 months and 24 days, was $22,367.18, and from February 1, 1896, the date of the second release set forth in said Finding Y, being for 3 months and 29 days, was $4,443.56.
XII. The items of cost and expense during the period of delay between the several releases in the findings are as follows:
XIII. The claimant company submits for the consideration of the court the evidence of the then Secretary of the Navy and the president of the claimant company, who signed the contract on behalf of their respective principals, along with certain other testimony, taken since the decision in the case of the Indiana, to prove that at the time of the signing of the contract as 'aforesaid it was not within the minds of the parties so signing said contract that the language of paragraph 6 of the 19th clause of said contract, to wit: “ On the execution of a final release to the United States, in such form as shall be approved by the Secretary of the Navy, of all claims of any kind or description under or by virtue of this contract,” should embrace claims for unliquidated damages of the character herein sued for, and that in so far as the language of said final release includes such unliquidated claims it was inserted by mistake, inadvertence, or accident, and did not express the true intent of the parties, and that the same should be so reformed as to exclude such claims.
The court, after due consideration of the evidence aforesaid as well as the evidence adduced on behalf of the defendants, finds that there was no mutual mistake between the parties in the execution of the contract or the releases thereunder; that the language of said contract and releases expressed the intention and purpose of the United States as previously agreed upon, though the contracting party on behalf of the claimant company may have mistaken its legal rights thereunder.
XIV. Upon the foregoing findings of fact the court finds the ultimate facts, so far as they are questions of fact, (1) that at the time of the execution of the releases set forth in Finding V the claimant company was not, by reason of the acts or delays of the Government, under duress; and (2) that there was no mutual mistake between the parties in the execution of the contract or the final release thereunder, as the same expressed the true intent and purpose of the United States, and the failure of the officers of the claimant company to apprehend the legal effect thereof was not the fault of the United States or their officers, and that therefore the same are not the subject of reformation.
Mr. John C. Fay for the claimant.
Mr. Holmes Oonrad and Mr. 0. E. Oreecy were on the brief.
Mr. Franhlin W. Collins (with whom was Mr. Assistant Attorney General John Q. Thompson) for the defendants.

Opinion:
Peelle, Ch. J.,
delivered the opinion of the court:
The question now arises on the claimant's motion for a new trial and to amend findings on the ground of error of law as well as error of fact. We will therefore review the case.
The contract in this case for the construction of the battleship Massachusetts is identical with that between the same parties for the construction of the battleship Indiana, and the breaches complained of are in effect the same — that is, by reason of the delay of the Government in furnishing the armor plate in the order which, by the terms of the contract it agreed to do, the completion of the vessel was delayed for two years sis months and nine days, which delay the Secretary of the Navy under the authority of the contract decided was due to the failure of the United States to furnish the materials in the order as aforesaid, and for that reason the time within which to complete the vessel, and thereby release the claimant from the penalties provided for in the ninth clause of the contract was extended by the Secretary a corresponding length of time, to wit, to May 29, 1896, on which date the vessel so contracted for was completed and delivered.
The defense is that the extension of time so granted operated to release the Government from any damages which might have accrued by reason thereof, and, further, that the execution of the modifications of the contract and the releases thereunder, as well as the final release as set forth in Findings V and VI, operated to release the United States from all claims of any kind or description under or by virtue of the contract, including claims for unliquidated damages of the character described in the petition.
The contract and the releases in the case of the Indiana were considered by the Supreme Court (206 U. S., 118, 127), and the judgment of this court was reversed (41 C. Cls., 164). There the contention was as to the effect of the final release, in relation to which paragraph 6 of the nineteenth clause of the contract provided:
" 6. When all the conditions, covenants, and provisions of this contract shall have been performed and fulfilled by and on the part of the party of the first part, said party of the first part shall be entitled, within ten days after the filing and acceptance of its claim, to receive the said 'special reserve,' or the surplus, if any, of the said ' reserve fund,' or so much of either as it may be entitled to, on the execution of a final release to the United States in such form as shall be approved by the Secretary of the Navy, of all claims of any kind or description under or by virtue of this contract."
In construing that provision of the contract the Supreme Court, among other things, said:
" Manifestly included within this was every claim arising not merely from a change in the specifications, but also growing out of delay caused by the Government. The language is not alone ' claims under,' but ' claims by virtue ' of the contract — 'claims of any kind or description.' All the claims for which allowances were made in the judgment of the Court of Claims come within one or the other of these clauses. It may be that, strictly speaking, they were not claims under the contract, but they were clearly claims by virtue of the contract. Without it no such claims could have arisen. Now, it having been provided in advance that the contract should be closed by the execution of a release of this scope, it can not be that the company, when it signed the release, understood that some other or lesser release was contemplated. It must have understood that it was the release required by the contract — a release intended to be of all claims of any kind or description under or by virtue of the contract, and that the form of words which the Secretary had approved was used to express that purpose."
And further, in commenting on the release, the court said:
" Indeed the general language of the release itself and the number of words of description in it show that it was the intent of the Secretary of the Navy to have a final closing of all matters arising under or by virtue of the contract. Stipulations of this kind are not to be shorn of their efficiency by any narrow, technical, and close construction. The general language ' all and all manner of debts,' etc., indicates a purpose to make an ending of every matter arising under or by virtue of the contract. If parties intend to leave some things open and unsettled their intent so to do should be made manifest."
The holding is that the release contemplated by the contract was to embrace, as the court says, " all the claims for which allowances were made in the judgment of the Court of Claims," including claims of an unliquidated character, though the Secretary of the Navy was without authority to settle such claims.
Following that decision this court, under a like contract between the same parties for the construction of the ironclad Alabama (43 C. Cls., 202, 218), held that when the conditions, covenants, etc., had been performed and final payment made the claimant was obligated to sign the release provided for by the terms of the contract releasing the Government from " all claims of any kind or description under or by virtue of said contract; " that the rights of the parties were determined by the contract itself and not by the language of the release. On appeal, however, the case was reversed (216 U. S., 494) on the ground that the proviso to the release in that case excluded claims arising under said contract, which the Secretary of the Navy had no authority to entertain, and in respect of which the court said:
"It results therefrom that a release executed in accordance with the terms of the contract would have extinguished all claims of the company against the United States growing out of the contract (206 U. S., 118); that the Secretary of the Navy had no power to pass upon and adjudicate claims for unliquidated damages; that he had power to accept a release such as was given, and that the proviso left for determination in the courts claims for unliquidated damages growing out of the contract."
From this it follows that in the present case the claimant must be denied a recovery for the unliquidated damages claimed because the final release it signed was in accordance with the terms of the contract, no reservation being made therein.
The claimant, however, contends that the facts in this case differ from those in the Indiana both in respect of the modifications of the contract and releases thereunder and final release in this, that at the time of the execution of the modifications of said contract and releases thereunder the claimant was, by reason of its financial embarrassment caused by the delays of the Government as aforesaid, under duress. But as under the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of the Indiana cited all claims for damages arising under or in pursuance of the contract were released to the Government by the terms of the final release, we need not consider the effect of the prior releases further than to say that testimony of the officers of the Government and of the claimant company having to do with the contract was taken and offered by the claimant company, after the decision in the case of the Indiana, to prove (1) that the execution of the modifications of said contract and the releases set forth in Finding V were without consideration because the company was at the time of the execution thereof, by reason of its financial embarrassment caused by the delays of the Government, under duress; (2) that at the time of the execution of the original contract it was not within the intent of the parties that the final release therein referred to should embrace claims for damages over which the Secretary of the Navy had no jurisdiction to settle, and the final release is asked to be re-formed accordingly.
The claimant's contention is that the language of the sixth paragraph of the nineteenth clause of the contract was not intended to embrace unliquidated claims, and that, therefore, the language of the final release should be so re-formed as to exclude them. This is a question of law, and was the view of this court in the case of the Indiana; and if the same should be held the correct view now the claimant company would probably be entitled to relief without the re-formation of either the contract or the final release.
But, as the final release, as held in the case of the Indiana, is in conformity with the contract, its re-formation would not avail the claimant without also reforming the contract; and as the evidence disclosed by the findings fails to show that there was any mutual mistake in the contract (nor is any averred in the petition), there is no ground for re-formation. The effect of the claimant's contention is that under the contract the Secretary of the Navy might, as in the case of the Alabama, have prescribed two forms of receipt; and having prescribed but one, as in the case of the Indiana — though the claimant made no demand otherwise — the one he did prescribe in this case was not within the intent of the parties.
The question then is, do the matters on which the claimant company relies bring the case within the authorities which govern the reformation of contracts? That the claimant has not established by its propositions that there was a mistake in fact in the execution of either the contract or the intermediate contracts or the final release will be seen by a review of the authorities.
As held in the case of Citizens National Bank v. Judy (146 Ind., 322), "In every case it must clearly and satisfactorily appear that the precise terms of the contract had been orally agreed upon, and that the writing afterwards signed fails to be, as it was intended, an execution of such previous agreement, but, on the contrary, expresses a different contract." That holding is supported by the highest courts in many, if not most, of the States, as will be seen by examining the American & English Encyclopedia of Law, volume 15, page 651, note 5.
In the case of Hearne v. Marine Insurance Co. (20 Wall., 488, 490) the court went further and said: " The party alleging the mistake must show exactly in what it consists and the correction that should be made. The evidence must be such as to leave no reasonable doubt upon the mind of the court upon either of these points. The mistake must be mutual and common to both parties to the instrument. It must appear that both have done what neither intended. A mistake on one side may be ground for rescinding, but not for re-forming the contract: Where the minds of the parties have not met there is no contract, and hence none to be rectified."
Later, in the case of United States v. Budd (144 U. S., 154, 161), the court, quoting from the case of Maxwell Land Grant (121 U. S., 325, 381), said: "We take the general doctrine to be, that when in a court of equity it is proposed to set aside, to annul, or to correct a written instrument for fraud or mistake in the execution of the instrument itself, the testimony on which this is done must be clear, unequivocal, and convincing, and that it can not be done upon a bare preponderance of evidence which leaves the issue in doubt." The case of Hearne v. Marine Insurance Company, supra, was followed by this court in the South Boston Iron Works Case (34 C. Cls., 174, 201).
In the Milliken Imprinting Company Case (40 C. Cls., 81), where a circular had been issued by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue inviting bids for imprinting stamps, and under the belief that the terms recited in the circular had been set out in the contract the claimant signed the same, but afterwards discovered that certain material portions thereof had been omitted, this court held that there was such mutual mistake as to justify a re-formation; but on appeal the case was reversed (202 U. S., 168) on the ground that there was no mutual mistake justifying the re-formation of the contract.
Therefore the mistake must not only be shown beyond a reasonable doubt, but it must be mutual, "unequivocal and convincing," and common to both parties; and in this respect .the court, in the case of Diman v. Providence, W. & B. R. Co. (5 R. L, 130), held: "If,the court were to re-form the writing to make it accord with the intent of one party only to the agreement, who averred and proved that he signed it, as it was written, by mistake, when it exactly expressed the agreement as understood by the other party, the writing, when so altered, would be just as far from expressing the agreement of the parties as it was before, and the court would have been engaged in the singular office, for a court of equity, of doing right to one party at the expense of a precisely equal wrong to the other."
Hence it is uniformly held that a unilateral mistake is no ground for re-formation in the absence of fraud or other inequitable conduct by the other contracting party; and even in such case, if fraud be shown, relief will be granted on that ground rather than for a mistake; nor can the contract be reformed on the ground of mistake arising from ignorance of the law (Hunt v. Rhodes et al., admrs., 1 Pet., 1, 14), unless the party seeking such re-formation was misled as to his legal rights by the statements of the other party — not contended in the present case — (Schell v. Atlantic F. & M. Ins. Co., 98 U. S., 85), but a mere mistake of law without other circumstances constitutes no ground for the re-formation of written contracts {Snell v. Atlantic F. & M. Ins. Co., supra), especially where such mistake is unconnected with any mistake of fact and there is no fraud or undue advantage entering into the agreement (Nabours v. Cocke, 24 Miss., 44, 51, and numerous other cases cited in support of the same proposition in the Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, vol. 15, p. 635, note 1).
In the case of Hunt v. Rhodes et al., cited above, the Supreme Court, in speaking of the re-formation of a contract on the ground of mistake arising from ignorance of the law, said: " The question, then, is, Ought the court to grant the relief which is asked for upon the ground of mistake arising from any ignorance of law ? We hold the general rule to be that a mistake of this character is not a ground for re-forming a deed founded on such mistake; and whatever exceptions there may be to this rule, they are not only few in number, but they will be found to have something peculiar in their character."
This case has been followed by the Supreme Court in many cases since, and the last case is that of Utermehle v. Norment (197 U. S., 40, 56), where, in speaking on this subject, the court said: " It has been held from the earliest days, in both the Federal and State courts, that a mistake of law, pure and simple, without the addition of any circumstances of fraud or misrepresentation, constitutes no basis for relief at law or in equity, and forms no excuse in favor of the party asserting that he made such mistake."
It may therefore be laid down as a well-established rule that where there is no mixed question of law and fact and no fraud, undue influence, or deceit a court of equity will not grant relief. In the case of Lyon v. Richmond (2 John (N. Y.) Ch., 51, 60) Chancellor Kent said: " The courts do not undertake to relieve parties from their acts and deeds fairly done on a full knowledge of the facts, though under a mistake of the law. Every man is to be charged at his peril with a knowledge of the law. There is no other principle which is safe and practicable in the common intercourse of mankind."
It is manifest from the findings as well as from the evidence that there was no duress, nor was there mutual mistake between the parties either as to the facts or the law, as the language of the contract and releases clearly express what was intended by the officers and agents of the United States; or, as was said by the court in the case of the Indiana,, the " language of the release itself and the number of words of description in it show that it was the intent of the Secretary of the Navy to have a final closing of all matters arising under or by virtue of the contract."
But as the re-formation of .a contract is an equitable proceeding, and the Supreme Court reserves to itself the right, if deemed competent and material, to examine and review the evidence independent of the findings, we deem it unnecessary to review the evidence — in the main matter of opinion — or give the substance thereof. The sole ground for a reformation of the final release was the misconception of the claimant company as to its legal rights under the contract, i. e., that the claimant company was damaged by reason of the delay of the Government in furnishing the armor plate in the order agreed upon; that the same was not satisfied by the corresponding extension of time; and that therefore the language of the final release was not intended to embrace claims arising from such delays.
Such was the view of this court in the case of the Indiana, but on appeal the Supreme Court held that the final release was in conformity with the contract and reiterated the same in the case of the Alabama. It follows that to reform said release excluding claims of the character here involved it must be upon the theory that such claims xvere not embraced within the language of the sixth paragraph of the nineteenth clause of the contract. In víoav of the adjudications of the. Supreme Court to the contrary we do not feel at liberty to so hold; nor do we feel at liberty to insert in the final release by construction language reserxdng to the claimant the right to be heard in court when it might, by protest and demand, haxre had the same inserted with the consent of the Secretary. So in the final analysis the case resolves itself into this: Was the language of the final release authorized by the sixth paragraph, clause 19, of the contract? This is a question of construction and not of re-formation, and is answered by the Supreme Court in the case of the Indiana; and as the Secretary, who had the power so to do, prescribed and accepted tbe final release, as well as the other releases in the case, we must hold that the terms of the contract as expressed in the release hare been complied with.
The claimant's motion for a new trial is overruled. The motion to amend the findings is allowed in part and overruled in part. The former findings of fact and opinion are withdrawn and new findings and opinion are this day filed, the former judgment dismissing the petition to stand.