Geremia v. Boyarsky
| Decision Date | 28 February 1928 |
| Citation | 107 Conn. 387,140 A. 749 |
| Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
| Parties | GEREMIA v. BOYARSKY ET AL. |
Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Earnest C. Simpson Judge.
Action to recover damages for breach of building contract by Sylvester Geremia against Morris Boyarsky and others. Judgment for defendants, and plaintiff appeals. No error.
Joseph W. Manfreda, of Wallingford, and Jacob Belford, of New Haven for appellant.
Oswin H. D. Fowler and Louis Boyarsky, both of Wallingford, for appellees.
Argued before WHEELER, C.J., and MALTBIE, HAINES, HINMAN, and BANKS JJ.
The defendants are carpenters and building contractors, and in April, 1926, the plaintiff requested them to submit bids for the carpenter work and painting for a house that he was building for himself. The defendants met in the evening of April 25th for the purpose of making their estimates, but did not complete their figures, owing to the lateness of the hour. They wrote their estimates on two separate pieces of paper, but did not add the figures. The next morning the plaintiff called upon the defendants, and requested the defendant Boyarsky to stop the work that he was upon and complete the estimate. Boyarsky sat down with the plaintiff at a workbench, and proceeded to add up the various items upon the two sheets. In his haste, he made an error in adding the items on the first sheet, footing them up at $99.10, when the correct footing should have been $859.10. This error, being carried to the second sheet, made the apparent cost of the work $1,450.40, instead of $2,210.40. The plaintiff thereupon awarded the contract to the defendants, and later the same day they executed a written contract to do the work for the sum of $1,450.40. The plaintiff, when the erroneous bid was given, and when he procured the signing of the contract, had good reason to believe and know that there must have been a substantial omission or error in the amount of the bid. That evening the defendants discovered their mistake, and, as soon as they could find the plaintiff, notified him of the mistake, and offered to go forward with the work according to the actual prices carried out in their estimate, and as low as any responsible contractor would do it for, if less than $2,210.40. The plaintiff refused their offer, and insisted that they complete the work for $1,450.40. The sum of $2,375 was a reasonable price for the work covered by the defendants' contract, and the plaintiff thereafter let the contract for the work to other contractors for that sum. The court found that the defendants had made a material mistake in their bid, that it would be inequitable to award the plaintiff damages for a breach of the contract, and that it should be rescinded.
The finding is not subject to correction in any material respect. In paragraph 12 the item $959.10 should be $859.10, and is corrected accordingly.
The finding discloses a case where the defendants, by reason of an error in computation, have obligated themselves to perform a contract for a sum substantially less than the sum which the actual figures of their estimate totaled, and less than the reasonable cost of the work contracted to be done. It is the contention of the plaintiff that equity should not relieve the defendants from the consequences of their mistake, because (a) it was a unilateral mistake; (b) it was not material to the making of the contract; and (c) it resulted from the defendants' own negligence. While the mistake of only one of the parties inducing him to sign a contract cannot be a ground for a reformation of the contract, it may be a ground for its cancellation. Snelling v. Merritt, 85 Conn. 83, 101, 81 A. 1039. Though the mistake was not induced by the conduct of the other party, equity will grant relief, if the latter, when he becomes aware of the mistake, seeks to take an unconscionable advantage of it. Lieberum v. Nussenbaum, 94 Conn 276, 108 A. 662. The plaintiff, though he is found by the court not to have participated in the mistake, had good reason to believe that one had been made before the contract was signed, was notified of the mistake by the defendants before he had changed his position in any respect, and sought to take unfair advantage of it by insisting upon the performance of the contract at a price upon which the minds of the parties had never met. When the contract is still executory and the parties can be put in statu quo, one party to the contract will not be permitted to...
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