City of Chicago v. Sexton

Citations

• 115 Ill. 230
• 2 N.E. 263

Syllabus

<p>1. Building contbact—declaration of forfeiture—right reserved in the contract—its character and extent. A contract entered into between a city and a building contractor, “to furnish, deliver, set up, place and fix, complete, all the iron work required in the erection of a building for a city hall, ” etc., for a given sum, made up by stating the estimated cost of each story and the roof separately, to be paid when the contract should be completed, with payments on estimates as the work progressed, on condition that the progress of the work should be satisfactory, reserving fifteen per cent thereof until the completion of the contract, contained a clause that if the work should not be commenced in the time stipulated, or should not make such progress as to insure its completion in the time agreed upon, or if the work should be wholly or in part improperly constructed, the mayor, on behalf of the city, might declare the contract forfeited, either as to a portion or the whole of said work, etc., and provided that such declaration of forfeiture should not relieve the contractor from the covenants and conditions of the contract: Held, that the power to declare a forfeiture was not an arbitrary one, to be exercised capriciously, but could be exercised only in good faith and for reasonable cause, and further, that the contract was an entire one in its character, and the power was not limited to stories-of the building, but might be exercised as to a part of the work on a given story as well as for the whole of the work on a story.</p> <p>2. Same—unauthorised declaration of forfeiture—measure of recovery for work already done. Where a contractor is prevented from completing his contract by an unauthorized declaration of a forfeiture, the value of the work done and materials furnished by him under the contract must be fixed by the stipulations of that contract, so far as they can be applied; and he can not proceed upon a quantum meruit and quantum valebant, in disregard of