Duboise Const. Co. v. City of South Miami
| Decision Date | 23 February 1933 |
| Citation | 146 So. 833,108 Fla. 362 |
| Parties | DUBOISE CONST. CO. v. CITY OF SOUTH MIANI. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied April 3, 1933.
En Banc.
Error to Circuit Court, Dade County; Uly O. Thompson, Judge. O Thompson, Judge. against the City of South Miami. Verdict for plaintiff, and, to review an order setting aside the verdict and granting defendant's motion for a new trial plaintiff brings error.
Reversed and remanded, with directions.
Charles A. Morehead, of Miami, for plaintiff in error.
John C Sullivan and J. J. Lindsey, both of Miami, for defendant in error.
This was an action by a contractor against the city of South Miami on its contract for public improvements. Motion for a directed verdict was denied, and the issues were submitted to a jury for trial. The jury found a verdict in favor of plaintiff for $5,000 damages. Upon motion for a new trial, the court set the verdict aside on the theory that the ruling of this court in Robert G. Lassiter & Co. v. Taylor, 99 Fla. 819, 128 So. 14, 69 A. L. R. 689, was applicable to this case and prohibited a recovery by plaintiff. Upon writ of error to that order granting defendant's motion for a new trial, the case is now before us for review.
The City Charter (section 42, chapter 13425, Sp. Acts 1927) of South Miami provided that all contracts exceeding $1,000 should be awarded by the city to the lowest bidder, pursuant to public advertisement and competive bidding, as might be prescribed by ordinance.
The facts disclosed at the trial are: That the city of South Miami advertised for bids for the construction of two bridges. The bid of the plaintiff in error was about $100 higher than the bid of one George Bunnell, a competing contractor. The particular contract involved a total of approximately $11,000. The council, without objection by any one, let the contract to plaintiff in error as the lowest responsible bidder. Later, when town had been sued in this case on the contract for breach of its contract, it attempted to show by parol testimony that the rejected bid of the other contractor, George Bunnell, being as it was about $100 lower, was in fact the lowest responsible did covering the work that was awarded to plaintiff.
All evidence to the foregoing effect was received under the general issues involved in other pleas; no special plea of ultra vires having been filed. The jury found on the facts against the city officials' version of the transaction, the substance of which was to the effect that the city had violated the statute by awarding the contract to Duboise Construction Company, when it had not been affirmatively decided that it was the responsible bidder.
No record or other evidence was submitted which is in anywise conclusive on the proposition that the jury decided wrong when it decided for plaintiff, evidently on the theory that the city's own records were indicative of the fact that the city's real reason for abandoning its contract was entirely because it had decided, after letting a contract, that it did not want to go ahead with the improvement.
A careful review of the pleadings and evidence shows that the contract under attack by the defendant city of South Miami was actually let by the city officials and accepted by the contractor, in substantial compliance with the law, pursuant to a real competitive bidding for the work; that no unfair dealing or disadvantage to the public was intended, or actually resulted, from the acceptance by the city of the bid of Dubois Construction Company, although it was for a slightly higher total sum than that of another bidder who has never been affirmatively shown to have been a lower responsible bidder than was the plaintiff who got the contract; that plaintiff in good faith undertook to carry out its contract which required it to do the work on a quick time schedule under penalty; and that, after purchasing materials, and otherwise going to considerable trouble and expense, the city, without any lawful excuse for so doing, breached its contract to plaintiff's damage.
The city's contention that the contract was illegally let, and therefore void and unenforceable, cannot be sustained on the basis of anything that appeared in the proofs in this case.
In Wester v. Belote, 103 Fla. 976, 138 So. 721, 722, we held as follows on the subject of validity of public contracts required by law to be let out pursuant to competitive bidding:
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...and liberal discretion' of the trial courts. We said that such orders would infrequently be disturbed, citing Duboise Const. Co. v. City of South Miami, 108 Fla. 362, 146 So. 833. We announced that they would not be overturned in the absence of a 'clear showing of an abuse of * * * discreti......
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Grant v. Williams
...that trial courts are allowed a very broad and liberal discretion in the matter of granting new trials. In Duboise Const. Co. v. City of South Miami, 108 Fla. 362, 146 So. 833, this court went so far as to state that the decision of a trial judge in granting a new trial will seldom be re-re......
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Cloud v. Fallis, 185
...that trial courts are allowed a very broad and liberal discretion in the matter of granting new trials. In Duboise Const. Co. v. City of South Miami, 108 Fla. 362, 146 So. 833, this court went so far as to state that the decision of a trial judge in granting a new trial will seldom be rever......