Court Opinion

ID: 6249633
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-02-17 21:10:40.91335+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:59:23.298739
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Potter,
dissenting:
I am unable to agree with the view of the majority of the court in this case. An essential requirement of the proposed contract was that the contractor should furnish bond in the sum of 120,000, to insure the faithful performance of the work. This was not one of the things to be done or furnished as the work progressed; but it was a prerequisite; something required in advance of the performance of the work which it was to guarantee. Some six weeks passed after the signing of the agreement, and no such bond was furnished by the contractor. The defendant company might well have refused permission to the contractor to enter upon the premises until he had given the security he had agreed to furnish. But instead of standing sharply upon its rights in this respect, it indulged the plaintiff further by allowing him to make a start upon the work, at the same time warning him to file the bond within three days. This would have been ample time in which to procure and file the bond, if the financial condition of the plaintiff was sound or his credit good. But instead of procuring a bond with satisfactory sureties, as required by the .agreement, the plaintiff finally offered as a compliance with his obligation, the bond of a foreign corporation not authorized to do business in the state of Pennsylvania. Such a bond was of course unsatisfactory to the defendant company, and it refused to accept ifc, or to allow plaintiff to proceed further with the work. In so doing the defendant was acting clearly within its rights under the contract. Surely it was not obliged to run the risk of placing a large and important contract in the hands of an irresponsible contractor, who had failed to furnish the bond agreed upon. Under the admitted facts of the case I can see nothing which should properly have been submitted to a jury. The result was to give to the plaintiff the profits of a contract which he never carried out in accordance with its terms, and *228for work which he never performed, and which he had no right to even attempt to perform until he had furnished the bond. I would reverse the judgment.
Brown and Elkin, JJ., concur in this dissent.