Columbia Security Co. v. Aetna Accident & Liability Co.

Citations

• 108 Wash. 116
• 183 P. 137
• 1919 Wash. LEXIS 869

Syllabus

<p>Indemnity (7)—Principal and Surety (52)—Building Contracts— Bond — Limitations. A limitation in a contractor’s bond requiring suit to be commenced within six months after the time fixed for the completion of the work is not controlling where there was a valid excuse for delay; and the surety company is foreclosed from raising the point where it induced delay until lien claims could be adjudicated in pending litigation.</p> <p>Indemnity (10-1)—Principal and Surety (47)—Defenses. It is no defense to an action upon a contractor’s bond that the principal was not made a party, as required by the bond, where an order was made and complied with making him a party and an unsuccessful effort made to serve him, and no further insistence on the point was made, although the surety produced him as a witness.</p> <p>Same. A change in the plans and specifications increasing the cost more than twenty per cent, in violation of the terms of the contractor’s bond, is not a defense to the action, where the extra liability was incurred through the unauthorized act of the architect without the owner’s knowledge, and beyond the powers conferred in the contract.</p> <p>Same. Such a change in the plans and specifications will not defeat an action on the bond where the same was known and explained to surety’s agent, when application for the bond was made, the plans and specifications being already abandoned before the bond was signed.</p> <p>Principal and Agent (50)—Undisclosed Principal—Right of Action. The fact that the general manager and agent of the owner was named as the obligee in a contractor’s bond as the owner does not preclude the actual owner from bringing an action on the bond in its own name.</p>