Stuart Const. Co., Inc. v. Vulcan Life Ins. Co.

• Decision Date: 15 November 1973
• Parties: STUART CONSTRUCTION CO., INC., a corp. v. VULCAN LIFE INSURANCE CO., a corp., et al. S.C. 387.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

Page 920

285 So.2d 920

291 Ala. 650

STUART CONSTRUCTION CO., INC., a corp. v. VULCAN LIFE INSURANCE CO., a corp., et al.

S.C. 387.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

Nov. 15, 1973.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 13, 1973.

James L. Shores, Jr., Birmingham, for appellant.

Wilters & Brantley, Bay Minette, and John S. Foster, Birmingham, for appellee, Vulcan Life Ins. Co.

Inge, Twitty, Duffy & Prince and E. L. McCafferty, III, Mobile, for appellee Fred Renneker, Jr., and Associates, Inc.

Balch, Bingham, Baker, Hawthorne, Williams & Ward and Edward S. Allen, Birmingham, for appellee Brasfield & Gorrie, Inc.

FAULKNER, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment of nonsuit entered by the Circuit Court of Baldwin County on motion of Stuart Construction Co., Inc., after the court sustained demurrers to the amended complaint.

The amended complaint is as follows:

'The plaintiff, Stuart Construction Co., Inc., an Alabama Corporation having its principal place of business at Bay Minette in Baldwin County, Alabama, and licensed by the State of Alabama to do business as a general contractor, claims the sum of $50,000.00, as damages from the defendants Vulcan Life Insurance Company, a corporation (hereinafter referred to as 'Vulcan'), Fred Renneker & Associates, Inc., a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Alabama for the purpose of rendering architectural services (hereinafter referred to as 'The Architects'), and Brasfield & Gorrie, Inc., an Alabama corporation having its principal place of business in Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama, and licensed by the State of Alabama to do business as a general contractor (hereinafter referred to as 'Brasfield & Gorrie') for that:

'On or about December 15, 1970, Vulcan's executive committee approved the purchase of and Vulcan did acquire a building site for location of an office in Homewood, Alabama. Sometime after March 31, 1971, Vulcan engaged the services of the Architects to design and to prepare plans and specifications for the purposed office building and, at a meeting on or about December 22, 1971, Vulcan's executive committee and representatives of the Architects, decided to issue invitations to business firms licensed by the State of Alabama to do business as general contractors, to submit bids to Vulcan on or before January 25, 1972, stating the amount of money each bidding contractor would require for the construction of the office building.

'Coincident with the decision to issue invitations to bid on the construction of the office building, on some date in the year 1971 prior to December 22, 1971, which date is unknown to the plaintiff, Vulcan and the Architects entered into a conspiracy with Brasfield & Gorrie wherein it was agreed that Brasfield & Gorrie would be one of the contractors that would bid on the construction of the office building and further agreed that Vulcan would award the contract for the construction of the office building to Brasfield & Gorrie without regard to the amounts bid by the other bidding contractors and without regard to whether the bid submitted by Brasfield & Gorrie would be the lowest bid submitted for the building.

'Pursuant to the conspiracy, on or about December 23, 1971, through the Architects, it was made known to the general contracting industry and to the plaintiff that Vulcan was accepting bids from general contractors, and the plaintiff, being unaware of the conspiracy to award the contract to Brasfield & Gorrie, contacted the Architects for the purpose of obtaining an invitation to bid. Thereafter, in furtherance of the conspiracy, the conspirators did wrongfully and with malice interfere with the plaintiff's business by issuing to plaintiff an invitation to submit a bid, all the while knowing of the time, expense and effort that the plaintiff would incur in preparing and submitting a bid.

'Unaware of the conspiracy and with the expectation that Vulcan would fairly and honorably award the construction contract to the low bidder, the plaintiff instructed its employees to perform the work necessary for the preparation and submission of a bid and did submit its bid on the building, within the time...