Court Opinion

ID: 9586674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:13:56.393352+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:47.309309
License: Public Domain

Gardner, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. The majority of the members of this court have agreed that this case should be reversed. I am firmly convinced to the contrary, and in support of my conviction that the case should be affirmed, I am setting out the pleadings and the evidence as fully as if I were writing the majority opinion.
A brief summary of essential facts shows that this case is based on a contract between MacDougald Construction Company, a corporation (hereinafter called the plaintiff) and the State Highway Department of Georgia (hereinafter called the defendant).
It is alleged that the plaintiff was damaged by the defendant in the sum of $69,125.07 because of alleged breach of contract. The defendant admitted it owed the plaintiff $35,157.76. The plaintiff, in making his bid, calculated excavations on the basis' of .18 per cubic yard on the removal of dirt and .915 per cubic yard on the removal of rock. The bidding on the part of the plaintiff and the letting on the part of the defendant was for the total excavation of 771,148 cu. yds. which included 530,035 cu. yds. of dirt (designated as “common”) and 241,133 cu. yds. of rock. Actual quantities, including revisions by adding additional work not included in the original plans, brought the total to 959,274 which included 612,879 cu. yds. of dirt and 346,395 cu. yds. of rock.
This case proceeded to trial before a jury. The jury returned a verdict for the amount for which suit was brought. The defendant filed a motion for a new trial on the statutory grounds and added twelve special grounds by amendment. The trial *270court overruled the amended motion for a new trial. It is to the judgment overruling the motion for a new trial, the court’s ruling on the demurrers, and the ruling on the plea in bar that the case is here for review.
The record shows stipulations between counsel as follows: That “as to the third item of the contract which originally called for 771,148 cubic yards unclassified excavation, borrow, including ditches, at a price of 41 cents per cubic yard, that they actually removed 959,274 cubic yards of the unclassified type of excavations, and that 36.2% of such excavation was rock, which amounted to, as finally performed by MacDougald Construction Company, 612,879 cubic yards of dirt and 346,395 cubic yards of rock”; that a document which was identified as P-10, dated September 23, 1957, should be admitted into evidence without proof of its authenticity; that certain letters could be tendered in evidence without further proof of their authenticity; that there was no issue for failure to have the claim arbitrated. It was further stipulated that the defendant held $35,157.76, which was due the plaintiff under the contract, subject to the claim of the defendant against the plaintiff as set forth in a counter-suit. It was also stipulated that the “plaintiff made a motion at the nonjury hearing in this case to strike defendant’s plea in bar, and that the judge passed on said motion, and ruled: 'defendant’s plea in bar be and the same is hereby overruled on each and every count’.”
The evidence shows substantially as follows: R. F. Iiolahan, vice-president of MacDougald Construction Company, a witness for the plaintiff, testified as a registered engineer, having worked for the plaintiff for about: eighteen years; that he physically handled the making up of the bid under consideration. He testified that “there is a method by which it is possible to approximate the amount of rock which will be encountered in the construction of a project—take a drilling auger out to the field and sink it into the loose dirt and locate the surface of the rock, and from that compute the body, quantity of rock.” The witness also testified that there was a portion of the job for which neither the plaintiff nor the defendant had plans. He stated: “We did some drilling in that section but we had no *271elevations on which to drill to find whether there was rock or not. The remainder of the job we did not drill; we did not drill anywhere the State had drilled. We did not drill anywhere in the area shown on the plans on which we made our bid. . . . There was a note in the proposal when we bid. that there would be a change made and plans would be furnished at a later date, but they were not furnished at the time we bid.” The witness testified that on previous jobs the plaintiff had found the quantities shown on the plans had been very accurate. He stated: “I took the figure of 241,133 cubic yards of rock as given on the plans and arrived at a cost figure of $220,619. That is 91%$ per cubic yard for the rock. That left 530,035 cubic yards of dirt which costs less to move, and the total for that was $95,403.00, which gave me the price of 18$ per cubic yard[?], which gave me the price of 41$ per cubic yard on unclassified excavation. . . I knew the proper way to investigate it was to bore it and I knew borings had been made.” The witness testified that the plaintiff made a formal claim under oath relative to the matter upon which suit is brought and filed it with the State Highway Department, and the defendant refused to consider the claim, and that the plaintiff also attempted to arbitrate the matter and the defendant declined to arbitrate; that claims for increased time were not contested by the defendant up until after the suit was filed; that the witness first learned of the penalty against the plaintiff some time after the suit was filed; that delay in completion of the job was caused by the delay in acquiring the right-of-way for the project and that such acquisition was the responsibility of the defendant; that the witness had prepared proposals for many projects; that in order to make a bid on the project the plaintiff had to buy a set of plans for $40 and pay $5 for the proposal forms; that “I understood that 'rock is not mentioned in the contract.’ Unclassified excavation mentioned in the' contract consisted of roadway and drainage excavation regardless of the materials encountered or the manner in which they might be removed. I understood that provision of the contract to mean anything that might be found at the site—rock, marble, iron or gold. . . . Over the years that we have been bidding on contracts *272I have become familiar with the procedure for testing soils to determine the amount of rock in the soil . . . The amount of work on this job was increased ... We didn’t bore this job because we relied on the defendant’s figures and I bid on this job for the plaintiff without going to the site of the job and without making an examination of the soil ... On this job I relied on what the State Highway Department said in their plans and made a mistake; and I want the State Highway Department to pay for their mistake ... I don’t want them to pay for my mistake. I bid the job without boring it and without sending any men in to make tests to see how much rock was there because I thought surely they wouldn’t deliberately put the wrong figure down.” The witness testified that when the job was increased from $1,000,000 to $1,400,000 and the working days were increased from 250 to 335, the plaintiff was charged with 461 days and that “we protested those [meaning those figures] from the beginning . . . When I prepared the estimate for this type of bid I did not take into consideration the availability of the rock because there was no rock shown available, no waste rock to crush . . . The original plans show 31.3% of the entire excavation designated by the State Highway Department to be solid rock; the actual quantities within the scope of the work covered by the original plans was 764,324 cubic yards and 42.9% of that was solid rock; which was an increase in the volume of rock within the original scope of the work of 11.6%, which is 37% increase. The witness testified that on previous bids the plaintiff had found the quantities of rock set up to be accurate and that in view of that record there was no use in wasting money in drilling.
Frank D. Nichols testified that at no' time was anything said by the defendant about charging the plaintiff for delay on the project when “they couldn’t even let us on the land,” but that the defendant added a penalty; that the first knowledge the witness had that time had been charged the plaintiff for the overrun of days was on the pre-trial statement by defendant's counsel.
Sam C. Inman testified substantially that it was a handicap to be unable to get certain parts of the right-of-way from time *273to time because this made the disposal of dirt more expensive; that failure of the defendant to get the right-of-way caused delay and inconvenience. He stated: “If we had the whole thing to start on we could have completed it inside the number of days required by the contract. We would have put sufficient equipment and men on the job to do it inside the time. If we had' acquired all of the right-of-way it would have taken the same time to do the work done in 7 months regardless but had we been working on the control point of the job, that rock, in this estimated time, that would have gone along in this 7 same months.”
Alex MacDougald testified that he had had long experience in removing rocks and that “sometimes we bore a job and sometimes we don’t . . . We bid to carry out the plans and if they have requested a bid based on information that they furnish us and if there is less rock or more rock an equitable adjustment is in order . . . The provision of the plans says that the State Highway Department doesn’t guarantee or assume any responsibility that the quantities indicated on the plans or given in the proposal form will hold in the construction of the project, but doesn’t say that the contractor has got to move more rock than shown.”
Other witnesses testified that more rock was found than the plans showed.
Roscoe C. Tate, a design engineer with the State Highway Department, testified that the defendant puts any material difficult to classify under the heading of unclassified excavation; that it is a problem to tell where the rock is until it is uncovered. The witness also testified that the plans did not show or attempt to show the exact amount of rock or any other material in the proposed project.
Grady P. Holcomb testified that he never received a complaint about the excess rock, but on cross-examination he testified, “I didn’t say that there never was a complaint made to the State Highway Department about excess rock. I know there was a complaint made. I don’t positively know that there was excess rock, more than shown in the original plans.”
I am convinced that so far as the general grounds are con*274cerned the evidence is ample to support the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the Superior Court of Fulton County based thereon. This court has many times held that it is beyond the scope of the appellate courts to overthrow the verdict of the jury which is manifestly correct. And I do believe this verdict is correct. The trial court approved the verdict as rendered by the jury and I see no cause or reason whatsoever for reversing that ruling. This is a voluminous record consisting of 454 pages. The briefs contain over 200 pages. The case was tried by an able Judge of the Superior Court of Fulton County. It took a long period of time to try the case. To my mind the evidence is clear and conclusive. I think the charge of the court shows meticulous accuracy in covering the law applicable to the evidence. I see no errors which were made during the trial of the case and I believe all the special grounds to be without merit. It is also my belief that the plea in bar was properly overruled and that there was no error made in any rulings on any of the demurrers. I reaffirm my position that this case should be affirmed.