Ayers v. City of New Castle

Citations

• 10 Pa. Super. 559
• 1899 Pa. Super. LEXIS 318

Syllabus

<p>Municipal contract — Interference by the city — Rescission—Claim for extra work, etc.</p> <p>A contractor who has a contract with -the city to grade, pave, etc., a street cannot recover, after completing the contract, for extra work and damages incident to and resulting from municipal permission to a street railway company to lay its tracks on said street.</p> <p>Such interference with the performance by the plaintiff of his contract might have been set up as a breach ; he might have retired from further attempt at performance and recovered for work done and perhaps damages for the breach; he cannot by giving notice of intention to claim damages proceed under the new conditions and recover on a quantum meruit. Neither the city nor its officers have any power to sanction such proceeding.</p> <p>Municipal contract — Authority of city engineer to pass extra work.</p> <p>A provision in a municipal contract for notice to be 'given of claim for damages and for doing extra work by the contractor on notice from the city engineer does not comprehend damages and extra work occasioned by an intervention by the city’s own act but applies only to incidental and trifling items of increased cost which must be passed upon by the engineer promptly and with authority during the progress of the work.</p>