Court Opinion

ID: 9541466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:25:45.740613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:56.254086
License: Public Domain

*16BROSKY, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The majority holds that the liability of the surety, Fidelity, commenced only upon breach of the subcontract between appellant and Cocivera. Since the subcontract agreement provided that Cocivera was not required to make any payment to appellant unless and until it had first been paid by the owner, Warminster Township Free Library, the majority concludes that the cause of action here could not accrue until Cocivera Construction was paid by the Warminster Library and subsequently defaulted on its payment to appellant.
This conclusion rests upon the premise that the terms of the subcontract between appellant and Cocivera, and not of the payment and material bond issued by Fidelity pursuant to the contract for construction between Cocivera and the Library, control.
However, in this instance, appellant’s right to sue Fidelity arose from the payment and material bond, which provides in part:
The Principal and Surety further jointly and severally agree with the Owner herein that every person . . . who, whether as subcontractor or otherwise, has furnished material or supplied or performed labor in the prosecution of the work as above provided and who has not been paid, therefore, [sic] may maintain an action to recover for the same against the Surety as named in the above mentioned contract, prosecute the same to final judgment for such sum or sums as may be justly due him, he or it and have execution thereon . . . provided further that the action is brought within one year after the time the case [sic] of action accrued.
Accordingly, it is the terms of the bond which control here, since this is not a suit by appellant as subcontractor against the general contractor (Cocivera), but a suit by appellant as third party beneficiary against the surety (Fidelity). The bond does not condition the right to payment upon any conditions precedent, but merely provides that suit for payment must be brought within one .year after the *17cause of action accrued. In my view, a subcontractor suing under such a bond containing such language is entitled, in the absence of language to the contrary, to bring suit for payment upon completion of the work, assuming that the work was satisfactorily completed. In Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, The General State Authority v. Loffredo, 16 Pa.Cmwlth. 237, 247, 328 A.2d 886, 893 (1974), the court stated:
It is axiomatic that when a contract is fully performed, the obligation to pay for that performance would arise on the date of completion absent contractual terms to the contrary.
Applying this principle to the facts of the case at hand, we hold that the cause of action accrued March 24,1977, the day the last of the labor and materials was supplied.
The well-established rules of contract interpretation require that a written instrument must be construed most strongly against the maker. Galligan v. Arovitch, 421 Pa. 301, 219 A.2d 463 (1966); Heidt v. Aughenbaugh Coal Co., 406 Pa. 188, 176 A.2d 400 (1962). Therefore, the bond must be strictly construed against Fidelity. Since the bond requires no conditions precedent to payment, suit for payment may be brought upon final completion of the work. Although the bond here does not require that the work be completed in a satisfactory manner, we believe that such requirement is consistent with the customary and usual practices of the construction industry. Here, Fidelity admitted that all of the work performed by appellant was completed in a satisfactory manner.
However, appellant’s suit was not timely filed since it was filed after March 24, 1978. Fidelity, as the moving party here, was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. There is no genuine issue here as to any material fact, it being clear from the record that the last of the labor and material was supplied March 24, 1977. Prince v. Pavoni, 225 Pa.Super. 286, 302 A.2d 452 (1973). I, therefore, would hold that summary judgment was properly entered in favor of Fidelity. For these reasons, I must dissent.