CRS Sirrine, Inc. v. Dravo Corp.
| Decision Date | 04 December 1995 |
| Docket Number | No. A95A1500,A95A1500 |
| Citation | 464 S.E.2d 897,219 Ga.App. 301 |
| Parties | CRS SIRRINE, INC. v. DRAVO CORPORATION et al. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Gleaton, Scofield, Egan & Jones, M. Michael Egan, Jr., Atlanta, Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, Thomas O. Helton, Randall L. Gibson, Chattanooga, for appellant.
Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Gregory R. Hanthorn, John H. Williamson, for appellees.
Defendant (CRS Sirrine, Inc.) and plaintiffs (Dravo Corporation and Weyher/Livsey Constructors, Inc.) were joint venture partners who contracted with the Navy to build a power plant for a fixed price. Defendant provided design expertise and produced a technical proposal which was used to draw up the bid for the project; plaintiffs prepared the bid based on defendant's documents and then were responsible for the actual construction of the project. Numerous problems, many of which were caused by deficiencies in defendant's design documents and other breaches of defendant's contractual and fiduciary duties, resulted in a loss to plaintiffs of approximately $30,000,000.
In this action, plaintiffs attempt to recoup some of that loss from defendant. (Defendant was paid a fee for its work on the project and would have shared in any profits, but did not share the risk of loss.) After an extremely lengthy bench trial at which thousands of exhibits were admitted, the trial court found that defendant had breached its contractual and fiduciary duties by failing to provide plaintiffs with sufficient and accurate information, by failing to make any effort to design the project within budgeted quantities, and by failing to notify plaintiffs when significant increases over estimated quantities occurred. The court further found that these breaches proximately caused some but not all of plaintiffs' damages; it listed out the various categories and amounts of damages proved by plaintiffs, and then found that defendant caused and was liable for $5,518,812 of those damages.
Defendant appealed that decision on several grounds, including the sufficiency of the evidence to support the trial court's determination of the amount of damages caused by defendant. See CRS Sirrine, Inc. v. Dravo Corp., 213 Ga.App. 710, 445 S.E.2d 782 (1994). We upheld the trial court's imposition of time limits at trial and its construction of the joint venture agreement, see id. at 713-719(1 & 2), 445 S.E.2d 782, but remanded the case for clarification because we could not determine from the trial court's findings how it arrived at the $5,518,812 figure. (From the findings on damages, and the findings on defendant's breaches and their effects on the project, it actually seemed like the award should have been more--about $8,000,000.) See id. at 719-721(4), 445 S.E.2d 782. On remand, the trial court issued an almost identical judgment, reaffirming its determination that defendant caused $5,518,812 in damages but clarifying its methodology by specifying what percentage of losses defendant was responsible for in each category of damage.
1. In this appeal from that second judgment, defendant again contends that the trial court's finding that defendant's breaches caused $5,518,812 in damages was based on improper speculation rather than sufficient evidence. The court is the trier of fact in a bench trial, and its findings will be upheld on appeal if there is any evidence to support them. Kimbrell v. Effingham Bd. of Tax Assessors, 191 Ga.App. 544, 382 S.E.2d 388 (1989).
The voluminous evidence in this case showed that numerous changes in the project had to be made as the result of problems with defendant's designs, 1 and that these changes increased costs by necessitating the purchase of more and different supplies, by delaying completion of the project, and by increasing labor costs. This is more than sufficient to support the trial court's award.
Defendant nonetheless argues that reversal is warranted because the trial court, after finding that defendant did not cause all of plaintiffs' damages, should have limited the award to specific increases in costs which could be shown to result solely from specific breaches on the part of defendant. But defendant's position--that in cases where both parties have contributed to a loss, the party who has initially sustained the loss cannot recover anything if it cannot specifically identify which aspects of the overall loss were specifically and solely the result of the other party's conduct--would establish a standard which would be almost impossible to meet, resulting in nonliability for the defendant even when it is clear that the defendant caused a substantial portion of the loss. As such, defendant's suggested standard is inconsistent with our general approach to damages: While mere speculation cannot support a damage award, all that is required is evidence from which damages can be estimated with reasonable certainty, and difficulty in fixing the exact amount should not preclude recovery. See, e.g., Shepherd v. Aaron Rents, 208 Ga.App. 139, 143(3), 430 S.E.2d 67 (1993).
Thus, if a plaintiff can show with reasonable certainty the total amount of damages and the degree to which those damages are attributable to defendant, that is sufficient to support an award. And that is exactly what happened in this case. The court determined from the evidence that a certain percentage of the increase in various categories of project costs was caused by defendant and then applied those percentages to the amount of increased costs in each category to establish the amount of damages caused by defendant. We therefore approve the trial court's method of ascertaining the damages caused by defendant. Cf. Rome Housing Auth. v. Allied Bldg. Materials, 182 Ga.App. 233(5), 355 S.E.2d 747 (1987) ().
Defendant cites several cases for the proposition that a defendant whose conduct has caused a delay is not liable if the plaintiff's own conduct also partially caused or contributed to the delay. See, e.g., State Hwy. Dept. v. MacDougald Constr. Co., 102 Ga.App. 254, 264-265(2), 115 S.E.2d 863 (1960); Bancroft v. Conyers Realty Co., 63 Ga.App. 106(2), 10 S.E.2d 286 (1940). Defendant reads these cases too broadly, however. Rather than barring recovery whenever a plaintiff's conduct has contributed to the delay, these cases are simply a specific application of the general principle expressed in OCGA § 13-4-23: If a party to a contract makes it impossible for the other party to perform, the other party's nonperformance is excused. Thus, if a defendant's contribution to the delay was the result of the plaintiff's own conduct, the defendant is not liable for the delay. In this case both parties contributed to the delay, but defendant's breaches were in no way caused by plaintiffs' conduct. Thus, OCGA § 13-4-23 does not apply to excuse defendant's breaches.
Lastly, defendant suggests that the evidence does not support the award because if the court had truly accepted plaintiffs' theory and testimony regarding damages, it would have had to award more damages than it actually awarded. In the face of a factfinder's verdict, however, a defendant cannot complain that the plaintiff was entitled to more or nothing at all. Johns v. League, Duvall & Powell, Inc., 202 Ga. 868, 871-874(1), 45 S.E.2d 211 (1947).
2. Defendant's second enumeration of error addresses the trial court's ruling that postjudgment interest should run from the date of the original judgment rather than from the date of the revised judgment entered after remand. All money judgments in Georgia bear postjudgment interest from the date of entry. OCGA § 7-4-12. But if a case is remanded for clarification by the appellate court and a second judgment--identical to the first except for a clarification of how the damages were figured--is entered, when does the postjudgment interest start?
Applying an analogous federal statute which also provides for postjudgment interest on all money judgments, federal circuit courts of appeal...
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