Hoover v. Beech Creek Coal & Coke Co.

Citations

• 29 Pa. Super. 615
• 1905 Pa. Super. LEXIS 391

Syllabus

<p>Contract — Nonperformance—Fraud—Testing coal lands — Diamond drill.</p> <p>Where an owner of coal lands desiring to ascertain the thickness of the coal strata under his lands, employs another to sink a well with a diamond drill through the coal in such a way as to furnish to the owner a core consisting of a column extending down through the formations of the earth and representing the actual stratification, and the contractor delegates the work to another who after bringing up a core of twenty-two inches of coal fraudulently adds fourteen inches so as to give the appearance of a stratum of coal three feet in thickness, the owner is justified when he discovers the fraud in notifying the contractor to stop the drill, and in refusing to pay for the work.</p> <p>In such a case the action of the agent of the contractor in fabricating a false core and thus destroying the identity of the true core taken from the stratum in question not only deprived the owner of the reliable information which he was entitled to have but it tended affirmatively to mislead him. •Such an execution of the work was in no sense a substantial performance of the contract, but a fraudulent, defective and worthless performance, the same as no performance at all.</p>