Frassi v. McDonald

Citations

• 122 Cal. 400
• 55 P. 139
• 1898 Cal. LEXIS 597

Syllabus

<p>Practice—Running of Time—Expiration on Sunday—Power of Court to Extend.—Where the time in which to serve a hill of exceptions, as extended by order of the court, expires on Sunday, the moving party has the following Monday, under section 12 of the Code of Civil Procedure, in which to make the service; and notwithstanding previous orders have been made extending the time for service for twenty days, the court has power on such Monday to grant a further extension of ten days.</p> <p>Negligence—Building Contract—Independent Contractors—Opening in Sidewalk—Liability of Owner.—Provisions in contracts for the erection of a building, that the work should be done under the direction and to the satisfaction of the architect; and that the owner should have the right at any time during the progress of the building to make any alterations, deviations, additions, or omissions from the contract, the cost of which should be added to or deducted from the amount of the contract price, at a fair valuation to he made by the architect, do not have the effect to make the contractors the servants of the owner. Under such a contract, the persons doing the work are independent contractors, and the owner is not liable for the negligence of one of them, during the progress of the work, in leaving an opening in a temporary sidewalk in front of the building, and over an excavation thereunder, even if it be conceded that the architect, as the agent of the owner, must have known that the contractor, in order to do his work under the sidewalk, would have been compelled to make the opening.</p> <p>Id.—Knowledge of Unsafe Condition.—The owner of property fronting on a street is not an absolute guarantor that no opening may be found in the abutting sidewalk, and before liability can attach to him for an unsafe condition caused by the negligent acts of a third person not in his employ, he must have known of its defective condition, or as a careful, prudent man should have known of it. The mere exi