Court Opinion

ID: 9623827
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:44:13.525287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:35.273469
License: Public Domain

ELLETT, Justice
(dissenting) :
I dissent. The discussion about a common law copyright is not controlling in this case, for here the plaintiff was employed by one Allen to prepare plans and specifications and to superintend the construction of a building for Allen. • He performed his contract and was paid in full for his services, and having been fully paid, his interest in the plans and specifications was terminated unless he reserved unto himself in the contract with Allen all .right, title and interest in and to those plans and specifications.
' The fact that the association to which the plaintiff belongs has printed contracts providing that the architect retains all plans and specifications- will not -suffice. The custom among architects, if there be such, to claim that all right, title and interest remain in the architect, has been held to be unreasonable. In the case of Ebdy v. M’Gowan (1870), 2 Hudson’s B.C., 4th Ed. 9, the plaintiff, an architect, had been employed by the defendant to prepare plans for a vicarage. The payment was to be five per cent of costs if the vicarage was completed; three per cent of the estimated cost if tenders were received but work not completed; and two and onq-*92half per cent of the estimated cost if no invitations for tenders were received. The plans were prepared, but the defendant changed his mind and declined to proceed with the erection of the vicarage. He wrote the architect, offering to pay, and asked for the plans. The architect refused to give up the plans and sued for payment, setting up a custom amongst architects to retain their plans if the work was not proceeded with. It was held that such custom, even if proved, would he unreasonable and defendant need not pay for the plans unless he got them.
This case was followed in 1905 in the case of Gibbons v. Pease, 1 K.B. 810 (C.A.) Here the architect was employed by a building owner to carry out alterations in certain houses. He prepared plans, superintended the work, and was paid his remuneration in full. The building owner then demanded the plans. The architect refused to hand them over. In an action by the owner to recover the plans, the court held that the custom set up by the defendant entitling him as an architect to the property in the plans after the completion of the work and payment therefor was unreasonable and afforded no defense to the action.
In the Nebraska case of Berlinghof v. Lincoln County, 128 Neb. 28, 257 N.W. 373, the plaintiff, an architect, was employed to make plans and specifications and- supervise construction of a courthouse for an agreed compensation. The architect performed the contract and was paid in full. Some ten years later the county employed another architect to draw new plans and specifications for the remodeling of the courthouse and permitted the new architect to use the original plans and specifications made by the plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed the plans as his own and sued for a commission of three and one-half per cent of the amount estimated to be the cost of remodeling. The county filed a general demurrer, which was sustained, and the plaintiff appealed. In affirming the ruling of the lower court, the Supreme Court of Nebraska quoted from 5 C.J. 259' as follows:
An architect ordinarily has no right to the ownership of a plan furnished to,, accepted by, and paid for by another, and plans forming an essential part of the building contract, unless proved to be the property of the architect, are deemed to be the property of the employer.
To the same effect is the text stated in 6 C.J.S. Architects § 10:
§ 10. Plans and Estimates
In the absence of a contrary agreement the architect is not the owner of plans prepared by him which are accepted and paid for by his employer.
As a general rule, one who employs, an architect to prepare plans and specifications for a building and pays him *93therefor becomes the owner of the plans. An exception, of course, arises where the contract specifically states that all plans and specifications are considered the property of the architect and are to be returned to him. * * *
In harmony with the above is the statement in 5 Am.Jur.2d. Architects, § 11:
In the absence of any agreement to the contrary, where the architect has prepared plans, superintended construction, and been paid for his work, the owner of the building is entitled to the plans. * * *
The Minnesota case of McCoy v. Grant, 144 Minn. 92, 174 N.W. 728, involved a situation where the architect had recovered in the lower court for a second use of a set of plans which had been prepared, used, and paid for, in a former construction project. The trial court, however, in that case had found that the architect was the owner of the plans and that the defendant had promised to pay again for the plans which were used in building a second house. The Supreme Court said:
* * * He insists that, having paid plaintiff for his services in devising and preparing the plans and specifications for his former house, they had become his property, and he had the absolute right to make any use of them he saw fit without compensating plaintiff therefor. It is probably true that one who employs an architect to devise and prepare plans and specifications for a building and pays him therefor becomes the owner of such plans and specifications unless the contract provides that they are not to become his property. Gibbon v. Pease, 2 Ann.Cas. 713, and cases cited in note. But the court found as a fact that plaintiff was the owner of the plans in controversy and that defendant procured them for use in constructing the second house under an agreement to pay plaintiff for them.
An architect as plaintiff has the burden of convincing the trial court by a preponderance of the evidence that in his contract with the client for whom he made the plans he retained all of the right, title and interest in those plans and specifications before he can be determined to be the owner thereof.
In the instant case the trial judge was not convinced that the plaintiff had retained all right, title and interest in and to the plans. In fact, he was convinced to the contrary, and in his ninth finding of fact specifically found: “Plaintiff’s contract of employment did not provide that plaintiff retained all right, title and interest in and to the architectural plans and specifications.”
I cannot see how we can hold that the trial judge was compelled to make a contrary finding to the one he made. Unless *94we can say that he must find that the architect retained the right, title and interest in and to the plans and specifications in question here, then this plaintiff cannot recover for a conversion thereof, as Mr. Allen, the true owner, would be the one entitled to bring such an action. I would affirm the trial court’s judgment.