Goodrich Oil Burner Mfg. Co. v. Cooke

• Decision Date: 16 April 1940
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: GOODRICH OIL BURNER MFG. CO. v. COOKE et al.

12 A.2d 833

126 Conn. 551

GOODRICH OIL BURNER MFG. CO. v. COOKE et al.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

April 16, 1940

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; William H. Comley Judge.

Action by the Goodrich Oil Burner Manufacturing Company against C W. Cooke and others to recover value of goods and services furnished to defendants. The defendants filed a counterclaim and the issues were tried to the jury. Verdict and judgment for plaintiff, and defendants appeal.

Error and new trial ordered.

In action for labor performed and materials furnished in repair of a refrigerating plant of defendants, defendants were entitled to show under their general denial or special defense any circumstances which would go directly to reduce the reasonable value of the materials and labor furnished by the plaintiff.

T. Holmes Bracken, of New Haven, for appellants-defendants.

Spencer S. Hoyt, of New Haven, for appellee-plaintiff.

Argued before MALTBIE, C.J., and HINMAN, AVERY, BROWN and JENNINGS, JJ.

JENNINGS, Judge.

The plaintiff brought suit for labor performed and materials furnished in the repair of the refrigerating plant of the defendants. The defendants filed a general denial, special defense, and counterclaim. After an adverse verdict the defendants appealed claiming errors in the charge and in rulings on evidence.

The allegations of the special defense are fully supported by the defendants' claims of proof as set forth in the finding and may be summarized as follows: The defendants are engaged in the business of raising, storing, and selling apples at wholesale and retail. To that end they operate a large cooling or refrigerator plant in Branford. At the time of the transaction under consideration they had in storage large quantities of apples owned by them and others. The plaintiff sold and serviced such plants and held itself out generally to the public as a refrigerating expert and engineer, skilled in the business.

On November 9, 1937, the refrigerating plant of the defendants froze and they employed the plaintiff to repair it. In making the repairs, the plaintiffs failed to use due or proper care or skill in various respects, resulting in a much larger bill for labor performed and material furnished than would have been the case had the work been properly done, and resulting further in damage to the apples of the defendants and their bailors in an amount largely exceeding the bill of the plaintiff.

The plaintiff held itself out to be a skilled engineer. Its employees were not only experienced in the general repair of refrigerating plants but had frequently dealt with the precise problem confronting the defendants. There was no claim that the defendants had any technical knowledge of the operation or repair of such plants. The jury should have been instructed that the plaintiff was bound to exercise that degree of care which a skilled engineer of ordinary prudence engaged in the same line of business, would have exercised in the same or similar circumstances. Ferrie v. Sperry, 85 Conn. 337, 343,82 A. 577. This instruction, in substance, was given on one occasion, but elsewhere in the charge the care required of the plaintiff was referred to as due care or merely the care of a reasonably prudent man. The jury were therefore left in the dark as to which standard should...