Pike v. City of Waltham

• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Writing for the Court: FIELD, C.J.
• Citation: Pike v. City of Waltham, 168 Mass. 581, 47 N. E. 437 (Mass. 1897)
• Decision Date: 15 June 1897
• Parties: PIKE v. CITY OF WALTHAM.

168 Mass. 581

47 N.E. 437

PIKE v. CITY OF WALTHAM.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

June 15, 1897

COUNSEL

C.F. French, for appellant.

Johnson & Johnson, for appellee.

OPINION

FIELD C.J.

The contract could not be assigned without the consent of the city, so as to substitute the assignee as a party to the contract in place of the Pikes. The city had a bond given by the Pikes, with sureties, and had a right to hold the Pikes and their sureties on the bond responsible for the due performance of the work by the Pikes. The Pikes could have performed the contract by means of agents; and if Benshimol had continued to act as agent for the Pikes, and had completed the contract as such agent, the contract would have been properly performed. But when Pike, the survivor of the two partners, assigned the contract to Benshimol, and renounced all interest in it, and when Benshimol offered to complete the contract, not as agent for the Pikes but in his own behalf, as assignee, the city had the right to refuse to permit Benshimol to go on with the work. If the city had assented to this, it would have released...