Jonesboro Tool & Die Corp. v. Georgia Power Co.
| Decision Date | 09 June 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 61530,61530 |
| Citation | 158 Ga.App. 755,282 S.E.2d 211 |
| Parties | JONESBORO TOOL & DIE CORPORATION et al. v. GEORGIA POWER COMPANY. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
James D. Windham, Jonesboro, for appellants.
C. Crandle Bray, Donald M. Comer, Riverdale, for appellee.
Summary judgment. Jonesboro Tool & Die Corp., appellant herein, established a profit sharing and trust fund for the purpose of benefiting its employees and enhancing their retirement fund. A board of trustees purchased a tract of land for development. The land was subdivided into 73 lots, 68 of which were suitable for building sites. The trustees entered into a contract with the appellee Georgia Power Company wherein Ga. Power agreed to install underground electrical service to the subdivision. The agreement was prepared upon a printed form furnished by Ga. Power and signed by the principal trustee for Jonesboro on April 19, 1973. After execution by Jonesboro, the agreement with accompanying support documents was sent for consideration and approval to the appropriate officer in Ga. Power's office in Macon. That officer later deposed that he examined, approved, and signed the agreement but that this could have been several weeks later than April 19, 1973. By the agreement, Ga. Power agreed to install an underground distribution system for 73 proposed dwellings. However, the basic agreement contained no time as to beginning or completion of the installation of the system. In order to fulfill and clarify the time element for the installation as well as to establish cost factors, a supplemental agreement was executed and made a binding part of the basic agreement. The supplemental agreement, in pertinent part, provided that the owner (Jonesboro) would build homes on the lots within three years from the time the power company commenced installation of the electrical distribution system. The cost of the system was agreed to be $47,118.
The supplemental agreement continued by providing that no later than three years from the date of the agreement, the power company would estimate the annual electrical revenue from all homes completed and ready for occupancy. If, using a predetermined factor, the costs of installation of the distribution system exceeded the annual electrical revenue derived from all then completed homes, the owner agreed to pay the difference between the greater installation costs and the lesser annual electrical revenues. Thus, the greater the number of homes completed within the three-year period, the greater the combined revenues and the greater the probability that the annual consolidated electrical revenues would exceed the cost of construction and relieve the owner from any differential payment.
Three years to the month after Jonesboro indicated its consent to the terms of the agreement by signing it in April, 1973, an audit was made of the annual electrical revenues of the 25 homes completed as of the latter part of April, 1976. The audit disclosed that the 25 homes produced annual electrical revenues that was $18,074 less than the agreed installation cost of $47,118. Ga. Power billed Jonesboro for the $18,074.
Jonesboro showed that consent of the second party to the agreement was not obtained and finalized (by signature of the agent for Ga. Power) until several weeks after the April 19, 1973 date. Other evidence showed that installation of the underground distribution system did not commence until three to five months after Ga. Power had agreed to the contract, or approximately four to six months later. It was further shown that as many as five more houses were ready for occupancy within the next several months after the audit was completed by Ga. Power in April, 1976. It is not clear whether the further electrical revenue from these additional homes would have eliminated the differential or how greatly it would have reduced Jonesboro's obligation to pay any difference between the electrical revenue and the costs of installation.
Ga. Power filed suit against Jonesboro seeking the entire $18,074 deficit as of April, 1976. Jonesboro answered denying any indebtedness; that the contract was too vague and ambiguous to enforce; and that Ga. Power's agent had misled...
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