Southern Roadbuilders, Inc. v. Lee County
| Decision Date | 11 July 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-2554,85-2554 |
| Citation | 495 So.2d 189,11 Fla. L. Weekly 1537 |
| Parties | 11 Fla. L. Weekly 1537 SOUTHERN ROADBUILDERS, INC. Appellant, v. LEE COUNTY, Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Robert L. Donald and Gregory E. White of Pavese, Shields, Garner, Haverfield, Dalton & Harrison, Fort Myers, for appellant.
Sylvia H. Walbolt, J. Brent Walker, and Donald E. Hemke of Carlton, Fields, Ward, Emmanuel, Smith & Cutler, P.A., Tampa, for appellee.
Henry P. Trawick, Jr. of Trawick, Griffis, Hammersley & Valentine, P.A., Sarasota, amicus curiae.
Southern Roadbuilders, Inc., appeals the trial court's application of sovereign immunity to bar its action in contract against Lee County. We affirm.
The facts are essentially undisputed by either party and involve a 5.2 million dollar written contract for appellant's construction of air carrier aprons, fueling systems, airfield lighting, and service roads for the Southwest Florida Regional Airport in Lee County.
This contract stipulated completion of the job within one hundred and fifty-eight days. Appellant was forty-eight days into its endeavor when appellee revised the plans for underground drainage, i.e., the drain system's inlet structures. Appellant claimed it incurred $840,729.20 in additional costs in complying with appellee's revision within the time deadline. Appellant failed to advise the county of the additional costs prior to construction, and in fact, no claims for the additional work were submitted until almost three months after all work on the contract had been completed. Although the record contains evidence of unsigned change orders documenting this additional expense, the original contract does not provide for such additional expense and the record is devoid of any other properly executed, written instruments which would incorporate the terms of these additional expenses into the original contract.
In its amended complaint appellant proposed three bases of recovery: Count 1, breach of contract; Count 2, quantum meruit; and Count 3, job specifications. The trial court, applying the case of Pan Am Tobacco Corp. v. Department of Corrections, 471 So.2d 4 (Fla.1984), dismissed all three counts and held that sovereign immunity barred recovery as to each count. Appellant raises the dismissal of each count as its three points on appeal and contends that sovereign immunity does not bar recovery on the three counts and, further, that Pan Am Tobacco Corp. v. Department of Corrections does not justify a dismissal of each count. As points two and three prove to be respectively repetitive and meritless, we confine our discussion and holding to the first and dispositive issue on appeal--whether there occurred an allowable action for breach of contract.
The parties offer varying legal characterizations of the facts. Appellant urges a finding that appellee in its vacillation on...
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