Brown v. Decker

Citations

• 142 Pa. 640
• 21 A. 903
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 787

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>(a) The defendant, the contractor for the erection of a building, sub-let a part of the work to the plaintiff. The sub-contract provided that the specifications annexed to the principal contract, their terms and conditions, should be considered “ as if hereto attached; ” and that the subcontractor should be subject to all the terms and restrictions of the principal contract:-</p> <p>1. By these stipulations, the contract between the plaintiff and defendant was completely subjected to all the provisions of the principal contract between the defendant and the owner of the property, so far as the part of the work sub-let was concerned, with the same effect as if such provisions had been literally and bodily incorporated into the former.</p> <p>2. AVherefore, as the principal contract and specifications contained provisions that any dispute between the parties, touching the contract or its requirements, should be submitted to the architect, whose decision should be final, the plaintiff could not maintain a suit at law upon the sub-contract, to determine a dispute as to the character of his work done thereunder.</p> <p>3. Such a dispute, arising between the contractor and sub-contractor, was exclusively within the jurisdiction of the architect, even though it related in part to a claim of the sub-contractor, that defects in the work, if any, were caused by the fault of the contractor, and notwithstanding the sub-contract reserved to the contractor the right to sue for any damages which could not be covered by reeoupement.</p>