Court Opinion

ID: 9577948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:52.867279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:34.880476
License: Public Domain

HARNSBERGER, Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot concur in the majority opinion.
The opinion is based solely in the premise that the trial court abused its discretion in dismissing from the action the parties against whom the defendant filed its third-party complaint without giving any substantiation for that conclusion other than the speculative assumption that the State Highway Commission might have a cause of action growing out of the malconstruction of the roof of its building upon which plaintiff had laid covering material, although plaintiff’s work was performed in accordance with specification for its kind and quality and in a manner deemed and pronounced satisfactory by the commission’s agent, the architect, who accepted Bourne’s workmanship as proper and satisfactory, and for which the commission paid Bourne without complaint. The majority unjustifiably labels the installation of the roof covering as having been laid defectively. Whether this speculation of this court is intended to characterize the construction of that part of the roof over which the covering was installed by Bourne as defective, or is intended to mean the covering material was defective, or is intended to infer the Bourne workmanship in laying the roof covering was defective, is left uncertain. However, if the latter was intended, the court’s conclusion is contradicted by the fact that Bourne’s workmanship was pronounced satisfactory and accepted as such by the commission’s own agents and representative more than two years before Bourne’s instant cause of action arose.
The dismissal of the third-party defendants carried with it a finding that as a matter of fact they were unnecessary parties for the determination of Bourne’s right to compensation for his accepted workmanship, and this court is without legal authority to substitute any conclusion other than that which moved the trial court to dismiss the third-party defendants.
The remand for further proceedings results in a grave injustice for which no remedy is available to Bourne as it further improperly delays payment of a considerable sum of money to a small contractor who can ill afford to wait longer for his compensation.
The judgment of the lower court should be affirmed.