Court Opinion

ID: 9588303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:32:39.011608+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:00:58.057463
License: Public Domain

Brailsford, Justice
(concurring) :
I find no basis for holding that the contract executed by Yeargin on October 16, 1967, and accepted by Carolina *13on November 6, 1967, which incorporated a purchase order and 110 guideline drawings, all of which were attached to the contract, was a mere memorandum. There is a strong presumption that this formally executed instrument was intended to be what its terms import, i. e., the integration of the contract between the parties. The defendant insists upon the contract, with the incorporated documents, as merging all prior negotiations, and the plaintiff does not disavow it by either plea or proof. Its complaint seeks compensation for extra labor and material required by changes in the drawings on which the job was bid. This was also the tenor of Carolina’s letter to Yeargin of March 7, 1968, claiming entitlement, according to an itimized list of “extra work and changes,” to $225,110.00 in addition to the maximum price guaranteed by the contract.
Ironically, however, with the contract as my starting point, I arrive at the same result reached by Justice Little-john. Defendant’s claim that the contract of November 6, 1967, forecloses plaintiff from claiming extra compensation for work either completed before that date or for which revised plans had been issued, is upon the theory that it was plaintiff’s duty to recalculate its guaranteed maximum price, based upon changes then known to it, before signing the contract.
But this was not the proposal which defendant made and plaintiff accepted. Instead, in proposing the contract Year-gin incorporated the description of the work to be performed from Carolina’s 1966 proposal and also incorporated the identical (with immaterial exceptions) 110 guideline drawings on which the earlier cost estimate had been calculated. This simply invited Carolina to reaffirm its earlier bid on the basis of information at hand in 1966, without the necessity of a recalculation based upon current designs and specifications.
Certainly nothing in the contract opposed this construction of the proposal unless, perhaps, Section 13. With re*14spect to this section, I agree that there is abundant evidence to support the trial judge’s finding of waiver. Without disagreeing with Justice Littlejohn’s conclusion that waiver was adequately pleaded, I point out that no exception raises the point that the complaint is deficient in this respect.
The charge that the court erred in not requiring plaintiff to account for “the $93,000.00 contingency included in its guaranteed maximum contract price” is simply not supported by the terms of the contract. The purchase order obligated the defendant to pay plaintiff on a cost plus basis not to exceed $993,753.00 based upon the list of drawings attached thereto. The contract further provided that plaintiff would be paid 10 % of any savings between actual cost and $900,-753.00, referred to as “the estimated guaranteed price.” The so-called contingency is the difference of $93,000.00 between these two figures, as to which the contract imposed no obligation on plaintiff. This phase of the contract became wholly irrelevant as soon as actual cost exceeded $900,753-.00.
I agree that the court did not err in failing to allow the defendant credits which were not demanded by its answer, and agree that there was some evidence to support each of the extras allowed by the trial judge except the tenth item. I therefore, concur in the result.
Bussey, J., concurs.