Court Opinion

ID: 9465450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:46:44.422633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:11.184413
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent and would reverse the judgment.
It seems to me that we must construe the original contract against the general contractor who prepared it. To be sure, the parties based that contract on a proposal, which Flower submitted and Gumina accepted, stated precisely in the terms of the schedule attached to the contract. But Gu*167mina had indicated to Flower that the proposal was in the form necessary to win the bid; and it was important to Gumina for purposes of the affirmative action program required under HUD regulations, majority op. at 163, that Flower obtain the painting subcontract. As the majority notes, Schedule A does refer to the “painting of the above mentioned project in accordance with the painting specifications and plans for this project”; but it also specifically itemizes the work and the price in terms of the one, two, three, and four bedroom units, stating a price per unit, then the total price for each size apartment, and finally a grand total for all units of all sizes which equals the contract price of $98,-499.84. To my mind this schedule means exactly that the painting envisioned under the contract included only the “units” themselves and that the exterior, the community building, and the interior halls were not included. Indeed there was evidence that when Flower submitted its proposal the interior halls were going to be brick and not painted at all.1
The contract itself, consisting of a standard American Institute of Architects (AIA) Subcontract of seven printed pages which the parties had completed in full by typewriting and duly executed along with a typewritten two-page rider and the “Schedule A,” refers to the scope of the work as follows in Article 2, entitled “The Work”:
The Subcontractor shall furnish all labor, materials and equipment and shall perform all the Work . . . described in Schedule A attached hereto and made a part hereof as if fully set forth in this space.
The subcontractor further agrees that it will faithfully observe all requirements and conditions set forth by plans and specifications on file at the F.H.A. Office in Buffalo, N.Y. and identified as F.H.A. Project No. 014-44028-NP-R-SUP.
Thus, it is Schedule A itself, duly quoted in the majority opinion at 163 and not repeated here, that sets forth the scope of the work. To be sure, in the second paragraph of Article 2, the subcontractor specifically agreed to observe “all requirements and conditions set forth by plans and specifications on file.” But it does not seem to me that those words can be construed to cover work other than that specified in Schedule A, the incorporated description of the work under the contract. The subcontractor, Flower, promised to observe the “requirements and conditions” set forth in the plans and specifications, including the general conditions and standards and the modifications and supplements thereto as well as the requirements and conditions in the painting specifications as to quality and type of paint, method of application, and the like. I do not see, however, that any of these requirements and conditions adds to the scope of the painting work to be done.
The majority relies on the introductory clause in Schedule A reading, “The painting of the above mentioned project in accordance with the painting specifications and plans for this project.” But the particular governs the general, and immediately below the quoted caption the schedule lists the per unit figures for the different size apartments and sets out a total price for size representing the price for the total number of units of each size. Moreover, the introductory clause in Schedule A does not say “all painting in the above mentioned project”; it says “the painting of the above mentioned project.”
The majority suggests that had Flower examined Defendant’s Exhibit 5, the prime contract with the cost breakdown for each type of labor and materials, which indicates a total painting cost of $101,000, Flower would have known that Gumina would require the painting of the exterior work, interior hallways, and the community building in addition to the units themselves for *168less than $101,000 and that given Flower’s contract for $98,499.84, the contractor would go over his projection for painting costs unless Flower did all the painting. I do not think, however, that we can hold the subcontractor to this kind of knowledge simply because the prime contract was on file. A contractor can over- or underestimate a particular portion of the work, and here Flower followed Gumina’s own suggestions as to price, proposal format, and scope of work.
If there were any doubt as to the meaning of the subcontract — and it seems to me there cannot be because of the undisputed evidence that the general contractor, Gumina, drew the contract and that Flower submitted the proposal precisely in the terms of Schedule A at Gumina’s specific request — the subsequent conduct of the parties is quite compelling.2 Gumma’s field superintendent, Brian Smith, asked Flower’s president and general superintendent, Michael Ellison, to bring a copy of the contract “over to the job site.” He then “informed [Ellison] that since we had signed the contract, there had been some changes and he needed to get [Ellison’s] copy of [the] contract so that he could add a piece of contract document to [the contract].”3 That “piece of contract document” was a new AIA subcontract page covering Articles 1-4 inclusive and redefining the scope of the work by a “further understanding,” namely that all exterior work and the community building were included (at the original price).4 Smith told Ellison “that he didn’t think the exteriors or the common interior hallways were included” and that he thought that Ellison “ought to amend the contract.”5 Clearly, Gumina made an initial mistake and then tried to get Flower to change the contract. There had been a meeting of the minds on the terms of the contract as stated in Schedule A; but one party, the one in the more favorable bargaining position and the one which had drawn the contract, had made a unilateral mistake. It does not need citation of authority to suggest that this kind of mistake does not permit repudiation, rescission, or modification of the contract.
In short, I believe that Gumina entered into and breached a valid, enforceable contract with Flower and that the case should be remanded for the ascertainment of damages.6

. Michael Ellison, president and general superintendent of Flower, testified on cross-examination as follows:
The General Contractor informed us what had to be painted on the Fight Village project, because the preliminary specs were not complete. So he told me the public hallways there were going to be brick, so it was to my understanding from the General Contractor that was not going to be painted.

. The majority opinion says simply that nearly one year after Flower entered into the subcontract it asserted in a letter of March 18, 1974, that the contract required interior painting only. This recitation of the events omits the testimony referred to in text in this opinion immediately infra; it also omits the following testimony:
A. After we received the copy of the contract back from the General Contractor, it must have been about a month or so later we received a letter from the General Contractor asking us to post a performance and payment bond. And our contract bid proposal was stated, “No bond or union required.”
Q. Did you submit a performance bond?
A. No, I didn’t.
Q. Did you submit any other instruments?
A. Yes. What we did, we turned it over to our attorney, and he wrote the General Contractor a letter.
Q. Then what happened?
A. We heard nothing else from the General Contractor.
(Testimony of Michael Ellison.)

. This was the undisputed testimony of Mr. Ellison. Gumina never called its field superintendent, Mr. Smith, to testify.

. I note that even the addition to the contract does not mention the interior hallways.

. As Flower was subsequently to write Gumina, on April 11, 1974 (Ex. 8):
In respond [sic] to your letter dated March 4, 1974, wherein you stated that we proposed additional cost for items already agreed upon in our formal contract, there must be a lack in communication between your field office and your home office. Mr. Bryant [sic] Smith advised our company to submit a price for the items that were not a part of our original contract. We have met three or four times to discuss these matters. Mr Bryant Smith gave us a set of plans, in order that we might apply cost to these additions.

. I agree with the majority on the argument pertaining to custom in the trade. If the contract were really ambiguous such evidence might be admissible generally, but it would not be admissible against Flower in this case.
The trial judge made a number of findings pertaining to damages; but these do not in my *169view support his conclusion, among others, that Flower “failed to establish a rational basis for its assertion of lost profit and failed to prove prospective lost profits with reasonable particularity and certainty.” Flower City Painting Contractors, Inc. v. Gumina Constr. Co., Civ.No.74-552, at 9 (W.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 1978). The evidence was somewhat vague and conclusory but, with all respect, not so uncertain in my view as to require dismissal of the case.