Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Authority v. Inman, Inc.
| Decision Date | 11 August 1981 |
| Docket Number | MIAMI-DADE,No. 81-405,81-405 |
| Citation | 402 So.2d 1277 |
| Parties | WATER AND SEWER AUTHORITY, Appellant, v. INMAN, INC., a Florida corporation, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Worley & Gautier and Henry H. Harnage, C. Jan Strayhorn, Miami, for appellant.
Horton, Perse & Ginsberg and Arnold R. Ginsberg, Miami, Rubin & Rubinchik, Hollywood, for appellee.
Before HENDRY, NESBITT and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.
Inman, Inc., a contractor, entered into contracts with Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Authority, an agency of Dade County, Florida, under which Inman was to install wastewater force mains (sewer pipes). After Inman completed the project, it sued the Authority for additional moneys, alleging, inter alia, that the project drawings supplied to it by the Authority were in many instances in error as to the location of existing utilities or failed to show existing utilities, which resulted in Inman incurring additional costs due to delay and extra work. 1 The Authority admitted these allegations, but denied liability, relying in part on a provision of the contracts which stated:
The trial court granted a summary judgment determining the issue of liability in favor of Inman. It found, sub silentio, the Authority's admission of errors in the plans respecting the utilities eliminated all genuine issues of material fact and that, as a matter of law, the Authority could not rely on the disclaimer in the foregoing provision of the contracts or any exculpatory clauses found elsewhere in the contracts. We reverse.
The quoted provision of the contract between Inman and the Authority does not represent that the location of existing utilities is as shown on the plans. It simply represents that information pertaining to location "has been prepared from the most reliable data available to the Engineer." The fact, then, that the location is not as shown does not result in the Authority's liability unless the disclaimer is one that is, as the trial court implicitly found, inoperative as a matter of law.
Inman argues that United States v. Spearin, 248 U.S. 132, 39 S.Ct. 59, 63 L.Ed. 166 (1918), and United States v. Atlantic Dredging Company, 253 U.S. 1, 40 S.Ct. 423, 64 L.Ed. 735 (1920), and their progeny in this state, Jacksonville Port Authority v. Parkhill-Goodloe Co., Inc., 362 So.2d 1009 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), and Town of Longboat Key v. Carl E. Widell & Son, 362 So.2d 719 (Fla. 2d DCA 1978), stand for the proposition that admonitory,...
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