Case: Carr v JA Berriman Pty Ltd [1953] HCA 31 ; (1953) 89 CLR 327 
Outcome: followed
There were some faint suggestions in the course of submissions that Orders No 1 and No 2 may have been regarded as variations pursuant to the contract. This was not fully developed nor appropriately pleaded. It was not the way that the Superintendent or the Superintendent's Representative expressed matters at the time. In any event, any such contention would meet a formidable barrier in the passage from the judgment of Fullagar J in Carr v JA Berriman Pty Ltd [1953] HCA 31 ; (1953) 89 CLR 327 at 346 348 (agreed in by the other members of the Court). 150 It is also submitted on behalf of Goldspar that Order No 1 lacked important information and detail, namely: (i) No information was provided in relation to the location of holes required to be drilled into the poles to accommodate the specified accessories. (ii) No information was provided in relation to the specifications or positioning of the luminaires required to be provided for the poles. 151 That was correct. Whilst this would normally be the kind of detailed information which might be provided informally, and whilst Rawson-Harris and Barnes may have been able to make educated guesses about some of the information, an order having the draconian consequences contended for by the Council must be complete and self-contained. In my opinion, this notice was not. 169 The closest analogy is Carr v JA Berriman Pty Ltd . In that case a clause in a building contract provided: 'The Architect may in his absolute discretion and from time to time issue ... written instructions, written directions ... in regard to: (a) The ... omission ... of any work. ... The Builder shall forthwith comply with all Architect's Instructions...' The contract was for the erection of a factory building in accordance with drawings and specifications prepared by the architect. A clause of the specification provided that all steel should be supplied by the building owner and that all structural steel should be delivered to the contractor or sub-contractor's yard. The builder was to allow for the fabricating and erecting of all structural steel work. Fabrication was part of the work of the contractor. The contractor obtained a tender from a sub-contractor for fabrication prior to the entry into the contract which was accepted after the contract was entered into and the architect advised accordingly. Some weeks later, the architect wrote to the builder in the following terms: 'I have been instructed to inform you that my clients, ... have made arrangements with Arcos Products Pty. Ltd. of Parramatta Road, Lidcombe, to supply and fabricate the structural steel work for the above job, and that the respective order has been placed with this firm. In explanation I would like to add that this arrangement was made necessary by the peculiar steel supply position of to-day. I shall be glad if you would kindly inform me at the earliest of your allowance for the fabrication of the steel, which thus becomes a deduction post (sic) from your contract.' The fabrication of the structural steel represented a substantial part of the contract. It was held that the making of the contract with Arcos Products Pty Ltd constituted a serious breach of the building contract and that the architect's letter was not the valid exercise of a discretion to omit works. Fullagar J (who gave the leading judgment) said (at 347): 'Clause 1 is part of a printed form, and the powers conferred upon the architect extend to the giving of directions on a great variety of matters in addition to the "omission of any work". The clause is a common and useful clause, the obvious purpose of which--so far as it is relevant to the present case--is to enable the architect to direct additions to, or substitutions in, or omissions from, the building as planned, which may turn out, in his opinion, to be desirable in the course of the performance of the contract. The words quoted from it would authorize the architect (doubtless within certain limits, which were discussed in R. v. Peto ((1826) 1 Y. &amp; J. 37 [48 E.R. 577]) to direct that particular items of work included in the plans and specifications shall not be carried out. But they do not, in my opinion, authorize him to say that particular items so included shall be carried out not by the builder with whom the contract is made but by some other builder or contractor. The words used do not, in their natural meaning, extend so far, and a power in the architect to hand over at will any part of the contract to another contractor would be a most unreasonable power, which very clear words would be required to confer.'